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4 







RUBY’S HUSBAND. 

Ik 


BY 


MARION HARLAND, 


AUTHOR OP “alone,” “HIDDEN PATH,” “NEMESIS,” “MIRIAM,” ETC. 




1 




NEW YORK: 

SHELDON AND COMPANY. 

1 8 6 9 . 

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1868, by 

SHELDON AND COMPANY, 

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
No. I'J Spring Lauo. 


TO HIM 


WHO, FOR MANY YEARS, HAS BEEN TO ME 
ADVISER, CO-WORKER, AND BEST EARTHLY FRIEND, 

Volume m gjebicatcJi. 


MARION IIARLAND 





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MARION HARLAND’S WORKS, 

Sacli Work complete in 1 vol., 12mo. 

ALONE $1.75 

THE HIDDEN PATH 1.75 

MOSS SIDE 1.75 

NEMESIS. 1.75 

MIRIAM 1.75 

HUSKS 1.75 

HUSBANDS AND HOMES • • • . 1.75 

SUNNYBANK 1.75 

RUBY’S HUSBAND 1.75 

SHELDON AND COMPANY, 


408 & 500 Broadway, New York. 



RUBY’S HUSBAND 


CHAPTER I. 

It was a very disagreeable day for Thanksgiving — lowering 
at dawn ; at noon, sullen to wratlifulness ; rain drops scarce, but 
large, falling to the earth at long intervals, and threatening 
wayfarers with the storm that had yet not come at nightfall. 
It was gloomy, disheartening weather — the medium between 
sunshine and positive tempest, which is an exception to the 
famous maxim laudatory of mediums generally. There was 
nothing of the golden mean about this. All was dully leaden. 
It had made little ditference, perhaps, in the crowded home- 
steads, scattered over the hills and nestling in the valleys of 
the state in which my story finds its scene, except as it kept 
old and young more closely in the happy circles about blaz- 
ing hearthstones, especially as the afternoon grew raw and 
cold. It had certainly not marred the pleasure-seeking in the 
large and populous town of Krawen, where stores and factories 
were shut, in accordance with time-honored usage and the gov- 
ernor’s proclamation ; and where, when night closed in, broad 
streets of light shot athwart the pavements from the plate-glass 
windows of mansions within which family dinner-parties were 
gathered ; and narrower streams streaked the damp flags from 
modest casements in humble dwellings, where a comfortable tea 
was reviving the memories of the roast turkey and pumpkin pie 
eaten at noon ; while concert hall, ball room, and billiard saloon 
blazed forth a welcome to those who were not set in families — 
“ Come and be happy with the rest I ” 

- v/ , ■ I 


( 7 ) 


8 


ruby’s husband. 


But in the wide meadows skirting the city on the seaward 
side, where mists, smelling and tasting of brine, were rolling 
in before the sluggish wind that would be a gale by morning ; 
where the macadamized turnpike, the thoroughfare between the 
manufacturing town and its mightier commercial neighbor, was 
invaded by the tide flooding the ditches that divided the salt hay 
tracts, and served the double purpose of fencing and drainage ; 
where one looking to the left saw a lurid horizon line, the fires 
of a hundred furnaces that never went out, and to the right a dim- 
mer but wider glare, that likewise never faded into darkness, and 
meant miles upon miles of gas-lit streets ; where, turning his eyes 
from the illumined distances, the traveller, or sojourner in the 
dreary waste, beheld nothing but the fast-glooming marshes, the 
few and feeble sparks of light from the huts, erected, it was diffi- 
cult to say for what purpose, and inhabited by beings who must 
assuredly have been wondrously limited in their choice of 
abodes ; heard nothing but the wash of the incoming tide, and 
the sigh of the wind through the withered grass ; in this low- 
lying wilderness, where wet, and rawness, and November night 
meant such discomfort as the denizens of the cities never dreamed 
of, the twilight of that Thanksgiving evening might have served 
as the climax of all that w^as odious in weather and scene. The 
fog clung to and soaked and chilled the unhappy creature con- 
demned by fate to encounter it, drew strength from the muscles 
and courage from the heart. 

About midway between the emporiums of manufacture and 
commerce, there stood, a few yards back from the turnpike, a 
W'ooden house, two stories high, with a long porch in front, and 
across a barn-yard, surrounded by a miserable fence, a stable of 
nearly the same dimensions as the main dwelling. Alto«-eth- 
er, the establishment was far more pretentious than any other 
within sight of it. Half a mile farther down the road wallowed 
a lazy stream, broad enough to entitle it to the name of river, 
but wdiich w^as too shallow for navigation by large craft, and 
too poor in piscatory treasures to afford lively w'ork to fishing- 
boats. Back of the house, more than a mile away, although 


ruby’s husband. 


9 


it seemed much nearer on the dead, treeless level, arose the one 
prominent feature of the landscape, — a rocky, woody eminence, 
known far and near as Wolf Hill, starting up abruptly from the 
plain, like the bristly back of some aquatic monster heaved out of 
the boggy flats. It was but dimly visible on this evening. The 
fogs looked heavier and darker in that direction, but of shape 
or outline there were but vague suggestions. Of the two lighted 
windows of the wayside habitation, one looked out upon this 
hill, the other toward Kravven. Within the squares of light 
these defined upon the sodden earth, were the shadows of two 
human figures — a shape that passed and repassed from one 
point to another, within the chamber, and a form that had not 
changed her place, or moved her head, for half an hour. The 
interior of the room was trebly cheerfid by contrast with the 
outer scene. It was a kitchen, for a cooking-stove filled up one 
corner, and upon the wall above it was suspended a comely ar- 
ray of bright tins, while sauce-pans, gridiron, and griddle were 
revealed through the open door of a closet to the right. It was 
the family dining-room ; else why the table in the middle of the 
floor, with the white cloth and other preparations for the even- 
ing meal? 

A substantial repast it bade likely to be. The savory steam 
of roast turkey arose from a spit set in front of the flaming^ 
grate, pots of vegetables bubbled upon the top of the stove, and 
a side-table held a large waiter laden with divers kinds of pics 
and preserves. It was a Thanksgiving feast, so far as the culi- 
nary arrangements went — one for which the preliminaries 
were rapidly approaching prosperous completion, and respect- 
ing which no invited guest who loved good cheer would have 
been indifferent. Yet the priestess of the initiatory ceremonies 
to the right enjoyment of the banquet was obviously uneasy at 
the non-arrival of those for whose appetites she was catering. 
She approached the window ev^ry third minute, and shading 
lier eyes with her hands, gazed intently into the dense gloom 
without. Once she opened the back door, and stood for a mo- 
ment upon the porch, listening and looking for signs of tho 
expected ones. 


10 


ruby’s husband. 


“It is very strange they have not come ! ” she said, impa- 
tiently, returning to the kitchen and taking up the basting-ladle. 
“ Your father isn’t apt to be late when he knows there is a hot 
supper waiting for him.” 

There was no answer from the motionless figure at the win- 
dow. As the speaker poured a ladleful of gravy from the drip- 
ping-pan slowly over the browning fowl, the light from the 
glowdng coals fell directly upon her face. It was strongly 
marked, and not unhandsome. When the sharp outlines of 
nose, cheek, and chin had been rounded by youth and health, 
and her complexion been rosy, instead of sallow, she had been 
a belle in her circle. Her eyes were still bright and dark ; her 
thin figure was erect, and retained traces of the suppleness she 
had vaunted as one of the charms of her girlhood ; her hair, 
if not now thick and long, was glossy and curling. But the 
hand that held the ladle had lost its shapeliness ; exposure to 
the heat and vapor of the kitchen had ruined the delicacy of her 
skin, and her dark calico dress, without a glimpse of Avhite at 
the neck and wrists, gave a general dingy tone to the picture. 
She was silent again, thoughtfully anointing the plump breast 
of the fine bird on her spit, perhaps musing of the impending 
evil to her dinner from the late arrival of those who were to 
discuss it; perchance straying back in imagination to other 
Thanksgiving days, when the plenteous board owed nothing to 
her skill ; when, in place of uncarpeted boards, her feet trod 
soft carpets ; when jewels shone upon her white fingers ; silks, 
and satins, and laces bedecked her for the social feast or as- 
sembly-room. 

She had known all these things ; had been reared to expect 
and enjoy them ; for the first twenty-three years of her life had 
enjoyed them as do most gay and worldly girls — receiving 
them as her right, with scarcely a thought of the heavenly 
Giver, or an emotion of gratitude tow^ards the earthly parents, 
whose pride and darling she was. Then she married — under 
the influence of what marvellous infatuation it would be difficult 
to say — a man inferior to herself in birth, in breeding, and in 


ruby’s husband. 


11 


nature ; a fine-looking animal, with bold black eyes, luxuriant 
hair and whiskers, a Roman nose, and a large mouth furnished 
with strong white teeth ; a man who stood six feet one in his 
stockings, who had the neck of a bull, the stride of a giant, 
and a deep base voice, like the growl of an awakening lion ; 
a man who ignored the commonest rules of polite ^behavior 
and English grammar, who talked to ladies with his hat on, 
leaned back in their slight fancy chairs, nursing one of his big 
knees with both of his big hands, and chewed tobacco vigor- 
ously, while assuring his fair entertainers that he was not 
“ a-going to tell them nothing what warn’t exactly O K ; 
that he “ ’lowed Miss Agnes Masters was a ’mazing fine gurl, 
and if folks chose to say as how him and her was to be mar- 
ried, ’twan’t for him to go aginst gineral report.” 

Marry Agnes Masters he did amidst the groans and sneers 
of her acquaintances, and to the unspeakable mortification of 
her parents, sister, and brothers, who yet dared not controvert 
their self-willed relative. She saw and understood their repug- 
nance to the alliance. When she placed her hand in Nick 
Sloane’s at the altar, she knew that she was giving up every- 
tliing she had heretofore held dear, save her own will, for the 
love she bore him ; but she made the sacrifice cheerfully, boast- 
fully. She had unlimited confidence in her powers of suasion . 
and control. She said to herself, and hinted to her intimate 
friends, that she would educate her handsome Orson up to the 
level of those who now despised him. For her part, she gloried 
in him as he was. She overrated her ability, or the quality of 
the material she had to work upon. Orson was coarse-grained 
from the beginning. Not a drop of gentle blood had been in- 
stilled into the veins of one of the race for a hundred years. 
Warp and woof, they were homespun, and no amount of labor 
or ingenuity of art could ever fine-draw them into any less com- 
mon stufiT. Moreover, this scion of the doughty tribe was self- 
complacent in proportion to his ignorance and clownishness ; 
utterly unconscious of any need of reform in his manners and 
speech. But for this overweening conceit, he would never have 


\ 

. 1 


12 


ruby’s husband. 


dared to lift his eyes to Agnes Masters. Having won her with 
ease that must have astonished even his dull comprehension, he 
remained more fixed than ever in his satisfaction with himself, 
his natural gifts and their culture. Mrs. Sloane was a clever 
woman, notwithstanding this one lapse into insanity, and proud 
as shrewd. There must have been a horrid awakening to the 
true character of her husband, and the appreciation of the con- 
sequences of her mad step downward ; many struggles, in which 
the whole might of her determined will, nerved by desperate 
dread of the result of failure, tore at his dogged brutishness ; 
stormy scenes of reproach and recrimination during the early 
months and years of their married life, — but no one outside 
their home was the wiser for their combats, for her defeat and 
despair. She carried a high head and a brave front to the 
world as to her nearest of kin. For aught any mortal, save 
Nick Sloane, could tell, she doted on him, at the end of the 
first, second, third lustrum of their joint existence, blindly and 
exultingly as upon their marriage-day. 

* The fourth lustrum closed with this night. It was not likely 
she had forgotten that the 26th of November was her wedding- 
day, or that, recollecting what anniversary it was, memory 
should fail to sweep a backward glance over the one and twenty 
year^ dividing her from her maidenhood, and ask, “ Where is 
their harvest?” Father, mother, and sister had been dust and 
ashes for fifteen years. She had seen neither brother for ten. 
They had remonstrated with Sloane upon the reckless style in 
which he squandered his wife’s third of the patrimonial estate. 
He had ouarrelled with both, and she espoused his side. She 
may li-.ve repented her partisanship when another twelvemonth 
saw them penniless, except for the interest of a small sum in- 
vested by her father for her benefit, and so secured as to be 
beyond her husband’s reach. By means of this stipend they 
had contrived to buy these scanty acres of meadow-land, with 
the comfortless buildings standing thereupon ; and thither they 
had removed nine years ago this autumn. Nick hoped for and 
prophesied great profits from the investment. Railroads were 


ruby’s husband. 


/ 13 

to be built to the north and south of them. Maritifr^ Kroy- 
wen and manuhicturing Krawen were to unite their suburbs, 
and the site of his dwelling become an aristocratic quarter, 
where lots would be measured by the foot, and litigious men- 
tion be made of inches in deeds of sale. The railroads were 
built, and became lines of travel for thousands of residents and 
traffickers in the sister cities ; but the cautious burghers of tlio 
thriving Dutch corporations were too knowing to extend the 
cords of their tents over, or drive their stakes into, the shaking 
meadows, pronounced by the wisest land agents to be irreclaim- 
able from the dominion of the salt tides, the marsh fogs, and 
the mosquitos. The Sloanes were likely to die where they 
now lived, before they could dispose of their property at the 
smallest advance upon the original purchase-money. It was 
on a par with most of Nick's speculations — as foolish and as 
profitless. 

The few people who troubled their brains to remember him 
at all wondered how he lived. True, he kept hunting-dogs and 
guns ; and when snipe and wild duck were abundant upon the 
meadows, his house was the resort of parties of sportsmen or 
cockney Nimrods, who paid liberally for his equipments and his 
services as head-keeper of the watery preserves. “ Sloane’s ” 
was a familiar word in the mouths of amateurs in this manly 
pursuit, and not unknown to jockeys and horse-trainers. There 
were seasons of the year when foundered trotters, stiffened 
roadsters, and tender-footed colts ran, free of bridle or harness, 
in the paddock behind the stable, and were cared for by the 
proprietor of the “ farm ” at so much per week. lie was a 
“ capital judge of a horse,” which, with regard to a man of his 
intellectual calibre and tastes, is the next thing to declaring him 
good for nothing. Iland-and-glove with every groom and horse- 
dealer in the surrounding country, he had occasional opportuni- 
ties of pocketing a commission upon some cunning sale, or sharp 
exchange, in which each party had tried to overreach the other, 
and was usually egregiously cheated himself by his agent and 
go-between. Yet it seemed hardly possible that his family could 
2 * - 


14 


ruby’s husband. 


subsist upon an income so meagre and fluctuating as was de- 
rived from these various sources. “ Sloane,” reasoned the 
Museacres, “ must have some means of living unknown to the 
public,” or that insignificant portion of the public alluded to 
above, who concerned themselves with conjectures about him 
and his. These fell into the habit, by degrees, of shrugging 
their shoulders, and looking knowing whenever he was 
spoken of. 

“ It might be all right. Mrs. Sloane was a good manage' , 
and could make a little go a great way ; but Sloane himself 
was a slippery rascal — not too virtuous to resort to any method 
of turning a safe penny.” 

We do not design here to investigate the truth or falsity of 
these insijiiiuations. One assertion, upon which all who knew 
her were agreed, could not be gainsaid. Mrs. Sloane was an 
admirable economist. But for her, the establishment would 
have been totally wrecked long since. She was washerwoman, 
cook, housemaid, and seamstress, as the daily needs of her 
household required ; and she performed each of her multiform 
tasks well. Nick bragged of his wife’s culinary skill, and scru- 
pled not to swear over the game or fish suppers served up for 
him and his fellow-sportsmen after their day’s tramp upon the 
meadows, that she had not her equal in America. 

“ She’s a thorough-bred nag, I can tell you, gentlemen,” he 
would say, smiting the table with his brawny fist. “ One of 
the sort that steps high, and carries up well while they has a 
hoof or a hair left.” 

At which refined conjugal flattery the weary woman would 
smile with a touch of her old archness, and bid him “keep 
quiet, and let others find out her accomplishments for them- 
selves.” 

She never smiled at him in this -way when the guests had 
gone. These little prettinesses of courtship, that obtain with 
some couples until gray hair overarches the loving eyes, and 
wu-iukles supplant the dimples, were only practised by them as 
a blind — a means of keeping up the appearances to which the 


ruby’s husband. 


15 


wife had clung tenaciously since her honeymoon. Not that 
quarrels were frequent or bitter. She recognized the futility 
of attempting to alter her husband’s habits or principles, and 
avoided discussion upon subjects concerning which they held 
opposite views. She was too sagacious to waste her energies 
in useless bickerings. Without pretence of affection for him 
who had dragged her down from her high estate to her present 
ignoble condition, she remembered that she had, of her own 
free will, linked her lot with his, and doubted her right to up- 
braid him for following the bent of his native desires and his 
education. 

To this ill-assorted couple had been given four children, of 
whom three had died in infancy. The first-born, and the only girl 
of the number, was now nineteen years of age, and had passed 
the last four years away from home, at a boarding-sclfool, in a 
distant state. This was her mother’s plan. To dissever her 
from the associations of her home ; to keep her, except in her 
vacations, at the seminary, which had a high reputation for the 
scholarship and social status of its graduates ; to clothe her 
suitably while there, — had taxed the hard-working parent to the 
utmost extent of her strength and expedients. In this effort 
she labored unaided by her husband. He had ridiculed the 
scheme from the outset. 

“ The girl’s pretty face would have* married her off well 
enough at seventeen, without more book-learning than her 
father had, and all the money spent upon this foolery been 
saved ! ” 

The mother said nothing. She had her purpose in life still, 
notable as had been her former vanquishment ; and from this 
she was not easily diverted — certainly not by Nick Sloane’s 
arguments. 

“ The oysters will be tough as leather ! ” she ended the pro- 
longed silence by saying, removing a sauce-pan to the back of 
the stove. “ Hadn’t you better eat yours now, before they are 
ruined ? ” 

“ And spoil my appetite for everything else ! No, thank 
you ! ” 


16 


ruby’s husband. 


The daughter turned her head from the window, her eyes 
from the black panes that had ceased to reveal aught beside the 
reflection of the fire and lamplight, and came languidly forward 
to the table. 

“ It is very vexatious,” she continued, fretfully, “ when one 
is cut off from all enjoyments except eating and drinking, not 
to be able to indulge in these as she likes ! ” 

“ Poor child ! ” responded the mother. “ If I were you, I 
would not wait for them. Let me give you your supper. 
Everything is done to turn.” 

“ They would come in just as I began to eat. I know how 
it would be. How hungry I am ! ” 

She sat down by the table, and leaned her chin upon her 
hand, her gaze devouring the brown-breasted turkey her mother 
was withdrawing to a safer distance from the stove. She might 
have been Eve regretting the pleasant fruits of the garden, 
Magdalene mourning over her departed purity, as she thus 
leaned and looked. She could not have personated the Peri 
at the gate of Paradise, or a grieving yet sinless angel, or any 
other being that had not tasted for herself of the tree of knowl- 
edge of good and evil. Captious critics of womanly beauty would/ 
have called her hair red, but for the bronze shadows that rested 
among and set off to more advantage the burnished ripples. 
Her forehead was low and smooth, the arch of the hair above her 
brows giving it the semblance of greater^ height than it really 
had, and her skin had the pearly transparency that often accom- 
panies auburn tresses. Her eyes were of a peculiar tint — 
neither blue, gray, nor hazel, but one that in certain lights ex- 
actly matched her hair. They were cold and clear, with a 
metallic glitter she studied to hide when she would affect soft- 
ness, by a trick of dropping over them the white lids until the 
thick lashes touched her cheek. The lips were bright red, — so 
red as to suggest to the observer all manner of poetical similes 
of coral, roses, and cherries, — and, without forming a sensitive 
feature, could yet achieve a quiver, or pout, at the will of their 
owner, that enhanced their beauty. She was above the medium 


ruby’s husband. 


17 


height, and thanks to her inheritance of the mother’s trim zone 
and the father’s broad shoulders, presented a model of healthy 
and graceful womanhood, such as is rarely produced on this side 
of the Atlantic. Her plump white hands attested to her im- 
munity from the toils that had made the mother prematurely 
old, and her blue merino dress, fresh white collar and under- 
sleeves, showed as plainly, by their fit and general arrangement, 
that she was not insensible to her charms of figure and face. 

A petted child, reared with tastes and habits she could not 
indulge while her father’s house remained her home, one needed 
no prophetic vision to enable him io predict that she would 
make yet more miserable the humble dwelling of which she 
was now a regular inmate. She had been domesticated here 
scarcely a month, and every thought and emotion were in re- 
volt at the meanness of her surroundings and her unpromising 
future. 

“ Poor child ! ” repeated the mother, in genuine commisera- 
tion, as the shade deepened upon her darling’s countenance, and 
the mouth assumed a more decided curl of discontent. “ 1 will 
manage the matter for you ! Do you eat your supper comfort- 
ably, and I will send your father and that young man around 
to the front door, if they should come before you are through. 
You shall not be interrupted.” 

Tlic girl twitched her shoulder petulantly to dislodge the hand 
laid soothingly upon it. 

“ What matters one spoiled supper, when all the rest of my 
life is spoiled? It is just of a piece with everything else that 
ha])pens to me. I wish I w^as dead.” 

Heavy, angry tears plashed upon her fingers. She drew out 
her handkerchief, and burying her face in it, sobbed violently. 

The mother returned to her turkey and basting-ladle. Her 
eyes were tearless, but her features were contorted by a passing 
spasm. If she felt, in that pang, that her years of self-sacrific- 
ing toil deserved other recompense than these childish repinings 
and downright disrespect, she suffered nothing of the feeling to 
appear in her next remark. 

2 


18 


ruby’s husband. 


“ I know it is hard for you, my pet ! she said, in the soft 
tone she used to her child alone. “ But we will hope for better 
times.” 

“ I don't know where they are to come from,” ejaculated the 
daughter, pettishly. 

Further speech was prevented by the shuffling and stamping 
of feet in the porch, into which the kitchen opened. The door 
was thrown back, and the master of the house appeared, sup- 
porting upon his powerful arm the drooping figure of a youth 
who had been his companion in the day’s hunt. 

“ The big rocking-chair ! quick ! ” he ordered, before the 
startled women could exclaim or inquire what had happened. 

Mrs. Sloane brought it from the inner room, and assisted her 
husband to place the fainting boy within it. 

“ Brandy and water ! ” was the next requisition. Nick en- 
joyed a sensational scene wherein he could play the leading 
part. “ And I say. Ruby ! I saw a bottle of cologne on your 
bureau to-day. Bring it down, and a clean handkerchief or 
two ! Be spry ! ” 

The beauty departed poutingly upon her errand. She was 
just sufficiently afraid of her father to withhold open protest. 
As she reentered the kitchen, she heard the deep sigh of return- 
ing consciousness from the stranger, and her father beckoned to 
her to hasten. 

“ Bathe his face ! ” taking the bottle from her hand, and 
dashing a shower of cologne over the handkerchief she held. 
“ Now, Mr. Suydam, drink this, sir, and you are all right ! ” 

The colorless lips made a feeble attempt to obey, but the eye- 
lids remained closed. Ruby had a fair chance of studying the 
physiognomy of her patient, as she ungraciously mopped his 
temples and cheeks. He looked very young, — almost girlish, 
— with the soft brown hair falling back from his forehead, 
and his delicate features chiselled into sharpness by suffering 
and faintness ; but his unwilling attendant remarked in the 
slight mustache and shaven chin tokens of incipient man- 
hood. 


ruby’s husband. 


19 


“ But for them I should not take him to be more than six- 
teen,” she said to herself. “ He’s too tall for that, though. 
He must be eighteen at least, or he wouldn’t have such long 
legs ! ” 

Her gaze strayed to his hands, white and well formed ; thence 
to his hunting suit of rough gray cloth, the trousers being 
tucked within the heavy boots. 

“ Some counter-hopper off on a holiday spree ! ” she con- 
jcluded. “ How was he hurt ? ” aloud to her father. 

“ Gun bursted ! An overcharge ! ” was the reply. 

The wounded youth opened his eyes with a faint, courteous 
smile. 

“ I beg your pardon, Mr. Sloane ! The fault — was — in — 
the — gun — not the — loading ! ” 

Sloane roared with laughter. 

“ Never say die ! You’re one of the plucky breed ! Stand 
up for your rights, sir ! A drop more brandy, and we’ll look 
after this ’ere arm. If it was the gun’s fault, you are the one 
hurt — more’s the pity ! ” 

An indefinable something in the boy’s speech and manner 
disabused Ruby’s mind of the idea of his clerkship. 

“ Why, he is a gentleman ! ” was her mental ejaculation, and 
she moved within the range of his vision. 

She was rewarded by seeing the languid eyes widen in in- 
credulous surprise, the head lifted involuntarily from the back 
of the chair, while he Raised his hand in deprecation. 

“ This is not — fit — work for you ! ” he faltered. 

“ Allow me ! ” replied Ruby, benignantly, resisting his mo- 
tion to arrest her ministration of mercy. “ I am glad you are 
better ! ” 

The blood flowed to his face in a sudden rush. 

“ O, it is nothing ! a mere scratch — not worth minding ! ” 
sitting upright. “ I can’t think what made me so babyish as to 
faint. I never did such a thing before in my life ! ” 

“ I have more ’n once ! ” said Nick, sententiously. “ Now, 
old lady, if you will get Mr. Suydam’s room ready, I should. 


20 


ruby’s husband. 


advise him to turn in right away ; he can have his supper up 
stairs.” 

“ Supper ! ” The bluish-white circles came back to the boy’s 
nostrils and mouth. 

“ I don’t want any ! ” . 

“ Sick, eh? Well, you’ll be better off for a little fasting.” 

Mrs. Sloane lighted a candle and left the room. Her hus- 
band overtook her in the hall, and a whispered consultation en- 
sued, resulting in Nick’s return to the kitchen, with a message 
to the daughter. 

“ Ma wants you, Ruby ! I will do whatever Mr. Suydam 
needs.” 

“ Thank you ! ” said the youth, gratefully, to her, as she re- 
signed her post. “ Let me beg you not to trouble yourself 
about my room. I can sleep anywhere ! ” 

■ Ruby departed with a reassuring smile, which was exchanged 
for a scowl when she heard what was her mother’s business 
with her. 

“ Your father wants you to give up your room for this one 
night to Mr. Suydam. He is — ” 

“ I shan’t do it ! That is flat ! ’’ interrupted the outraged 
damsel, setting her back against her chamber door, without 
which her mother awaited her answer. . “ It is the only de- 
cent spot in the house, and I wouldn’t leave it to please tlie 
president himself! Who is this boy, that I should put myself 
out to accommodate his lordship ? He may sleep in the barn, 
for aught I care ! ” 

“ The boy is in his twenty-first year, and is the son of one 
of the richest men in Kriiwen,” explained the mother, quietly. 

“ His parents are travelling in Europe with his brother, who is 
consumptive. His father is old, and has already had one para- I 
lytic stroke. Your father knows all about them. This young ■ 
man is studying medicine in Kroywen. He is very clever, and | 
he will be very wealthy ; yet there seems to be no one to look 
after him, and we may have him upon our hands for several 
days — perhaps Aveeks. His shoulder is badly torn.” 


ruby’s husband. 


21 


Ruby looked hard in her mother’s eyes, a strange tawny light 
gradually rising in her own, then dropped them to the floor at 
her feet, and meditated for half a minute, 

“ Come in ! ” She announced her altered resolution by step- 
ping aside, and drawing back the bolt of the door. “Have 
your own way ! ” 

But Mrs. Sloane knew that she was understood ; that the one 
most interested in the hastily-formed scheme would forward it 
zealously. 

The room was small, but scrupulously neat, owing, we may 
observe, to the mother’s care, not the daughter’s. Carpet and 
furniture were new, and although the one was a cheap ingrain, 
in white and green arabesques, and the other only a cottage set 
of painted wood, — also a pretty shade of green, — the effect upon 
the eye was so agreeable, when joined to that of the white mus- 
lin window-curtains, tied back with green ribbons, and the white 
counterpane of the low bed, that it had elicited an exclamation 
of pleasure from the daughter on her return from school, and 
fully justified her late declaration that no other apartment in 
the house could compare with it. Again no thought of the 
self-denying love and toil that had planned and achieved this 
unexpected contribution to her comfort and happiness ! She 
accepted it, as she did all other good things that fell to her lot, 
as her due, and a very inconsiderable modicum of what Fate 
owed her. She grumbled still, while removing such articles 
from her drawers and closet as she would need in her new 
quarters. 

“ I shan’t sleep a wink, I know ! That front room is cold as 
a barn, and noisy besides,. with the rattling of wagons before 
daybreak upon the turnpike, and the cars passing all night 
long. But it is always the way ! I am to give up everything 
I like, and this is the only corner of this hateful old barn that 
is at all habitable ! I wish pa had left the booby out on the 
marshes ! ” 

“ I hope you will never have cause to regret your charitable 
action!” responded the judicious parent. Well satisfied at 


22 


ruby’s husband. 


having gained her point, she heeded the spoiled child’s mur- 
murs less than was her wont. 

“ Not a doctor in the country could have done more for him 
than I done ! ” said Nick, modestly, sitting down to his late 
supper with his wife and daughter. “ I am to go betimes in 
the morning to Krawen, to let a fellow who is studying with 
him know what has happened and where he is. I offered to 
drive over to-night, but he wouldn’t hear on it. He seems a 
good-hearted chap, though I thought him kinder high and stiff 
all day. A prime shot, too, and he fetched a first-rate dog 
along. I told him I could sell him for a cool hundred, if ever 
he wanted to part with him. Said he had been offered a hun- 
dred and fifty, and wouldn’t take it. It’s a lucky thing to have 
a rich governor ! ” 


ruby’s husband. 


23 


CHAPTER II. 

The neat couch of white and green became the bed of Pro- 
crustes to the wounded boy before the morning looked through 
windy rain into the windows. 

Nature’s sulky mood had broken forth into wild wrath by 
midnight. The sleepless tenant of the easterly chamber had 
heard the growl of the wind from the coast wax into a roar in 
its unimpeded sweep over the meadows, until it buffeted the 
solitary tenement, shaking doors and casements as with a giant’s 
grapple, and making the timbers of the ancient frame creak 
again. Then large, slow drops fell, like molten lead, upon the 
roof overhead,^ and the Navember storm had fairly set in. The 
war of air and water would have lulled him to deeper repose 
but yesternight. It aggravated now his sense of desolation, and 
the nervous irritability consequent upon physical suffering. Hot 
throbs of pain racked the injured shoulder, his whole body 
glowed as if the chamber were a fiery furnace, and the brain, 
sympathizing with the general disorder of the system, conjured 
up images of loneliness and sorrow — reminiscences and fore- 
bodings that would have chased away sleep, had there existed 
no Other cause of disquiet. Lapsing into a troubled slumber, 
he imagined himself a child again, tossing within his crib, ill 
with scarlet fever, while his twin-sister, the only daughter of 
the household, lay gasping away her life upon the opposite side 
of the room. His mother’s shriek, as the breath left her child’s 
lips forever, startled him into consciousness of his real situa- 
tion, and, with the vision of the sweet, pale face of his child- 
hood’s idol thus clearly reproduced by memory, he clutched the 


24 


ruby’s husband. 


pillow in his pain and weakness, and moaned aloud Ills grief 
at her loss. 

It was the great loss of his young life. Had Effie lived, her 
three brothers would hardly have grown to manhood careless 
of home duties and ignorant of home loves ; the two elder, 
hard, unselfish men of the world, gay, brilliant, and heartless ; 
the youngest, morbidly misanthropic. The mother, living over 
her own girlhood in the bright, glad youth of the daughter, be- 
loved beyond all the rest of her children, would not have been 
lured to neglect of her family and fireside by the painted gew- 
gaws of fashion — made a holocaust of wifely and maternal 
obligations to the pitiless Baal of Society. The father, stern 
and reserved to severity, yet mentioned his dead baby’s name 
once in a great while, in a tone of hopeless longing that showed 
his heart lived still under the accumulated ice of years and dis- 
appointments. Of this grave old man, who rarely gave him a 
word of affection, the boy thought with more tenderness than ' 
flowed out from his nature towards any other human creature. , ! 

“ He told me once I looked like Effie ! ” he mused in his \ 
semi-delirium. “ If I w^ere to die now, we should always be j 
associated in his mind. Nobody else would care. My mother 
would be provoked, for mourning is not becoming to her. Jack j 
and Fred would say, ‘That is just Louis’s luck! He -was j 
always an unfortunate devil I ’ and divide my portion of the j 
patrimonial estate between them, chuckling over their superior 
address in keeping out of scrapes. I am a battered skiff 
stranded upon the beach, not worth the pains of looking after. 

I might lie in this out-of-the-way hole for a month, and not a 
soul vex himself with inquiries as to what had become of me. j 
By George! I’ll try the experiment!” he exclaimed aloud, 
with savage glee. 

“Eh! what did you ask for, sir?” said Nick Sloane, start- 
ing from his sleep in the easy-chair by the fire. 

He had insisted upon spending the night in his lodger’s room,-, 
that he might be on hand in case he was needed, and had cn- : 
joyed a series of royal naps, his feet upon the mantel, and his ‘ 


1 


ruby’s husband. 


25 


great mouth wide open. He had awakened several times to 
replenish the fire, and to give the patient lemonade or water, as 
his thirst increased, remarking, as he did so, that it was a 
“ confoundedly ugly night,” that “ there would be lots of craft 
blowed ashore before morning,” and inquiring ‘‘ how about that 
’ere shoulder by this time ? ” He approached the bedside now, 
rubbing his eyes, and yawning. 

“ More pain ? ” he asked, in a business-like way. 

“ I should think so ! ” returned the youth, impatiently. Is 
there nothing that can loosen these teeth from my shoulder? 
It feels as if a tiger had fastened upon it ! ” 

“Jest so ! Lor ! how I have saw men squirm under that 
’ere kind o’ gnawing pain ! ” remarked Nick, with professional 
coolness. “ Let’s look at the hole ! I’ll change the bandages, 
and put fresh ’intment on.” 

“ What time is it? ” asked the patient, while this process was 
going on. 

“ Six o’clock and after ! Who’s there?” as a tap was heard 
at the door. 

“ Can I come in?” said his wife’s voice. 

“ Yes ! ” And as she entered, he added, with his usual re- 
finement, “ I say, old woman, ’spose you finish up this ’ere job. 
I b’lieve I’ll take a snooze for an hour or so.” 

“ You can go,” rejoined Mrs. Sloane, taking his place at the 
bedside. 

Dizzy with pain and fever, though he was, Louis noted the 
marked difference in the accent and manner of the pair. He 
scanned, with languid curiosity, the features and movements 
of his new nurse. Her very touch brought him comfort, after 
Nick’s heavy handling of the inflamed flesh. Her fingers were 
neither soft nor fair, but they were light, and nimble as firm. 
The ointment seemed cooler ; the linen bandages a support, 
rather than a compress, to the swollen joint, as applied by her ; 
and her serious, kindly face and silent solicitude for his well- 
being were a welcome exchange for her spouse’s clumsy fa- 


miliarity. 



3 


26 


ruby’s husband. 


“ Thank you ! ’’ he said, when she readjusted the coverings 
over his chest. 

“ You are very welcome ! ” 

She shook up and turned the creased and heated pillows*, 
added ice to his lemonade, straightened the counterpane, put 
another stick upon the fire, which burst into a laughing flame 
in recognition of her attention, and after one more glance at 
her charge to assure herself that he wanted nothing else, she 
sat down in the chair lately vacated by her husband. Not to 
doze. Louis’s last drowsy look in that direction showed him 
her erect figure, the ruddy light that stained with a warm 
blush the snowy coverlet and whitewashed walls, imparting 
to her dark eyes and thoughtful visage a wondrous resem- 
blance to the pretty girl he had seen down stairs the preced- 
ing evening. 

She was not there when he awoke. It was broad daylight, 
or as broad as the light would be at noontide of that gray day. 
Angry jets of rain were dashing over the window panes with 
every rise of the restless wind, still blowing dead ashore. The 
fire burned gayly ; the little chamber was perfectly still, except 
for the moaning bursts of the gale. Louis shifted his position, 
that he might command a view of the scene without. A pale, 
watery sky, with not a rift from horizon to horizon, the clouds 
shutting down closely between the meadows and the ridge, be- 
yond which the domes and pinnacles of Kroywen were distinctly 
visible on fair days ; Wolf Hill looming into portentous height, 
and darkness through what looked like quivering mist, and was, 
in reality, slant lines of rain ; the muddy river level with the 
sedgy banks; the monotonous stretch of marsh lands sodden* 
with wet. 

“ The fattest weed that rots on Lethe’s wharf might have 
growm hereabouts!” said Louis, with the short, disagreeable 
laugh that had aroused Nick Sloane from his “watch” over 
the embers. “And wdiat am I but a bit of drift- wmod washed 
up, along with other rubbish, by last night’s storm?” 

The conceit pleased his fancy. He turned it over in his mind 




ruby’s husband. 


27 


with dismal satisfaction. Brooding, not reflecting, had become 
the habit of his thoughts. 

“ A useless waif, not fit to be picked up or looked after ! 
And nobody is likely to trouble himself to do it ! ” he repeated, 
for the twentieth time. 

A sudden outbreak of music changed the current of his rev- 
erie. Partitions were thin and doors badly joined in that 
crazy dwelling. The songstress was in the chamber opposite 
to his, and the width of the passage, with one, possibly two,’ 
closed doors, separated him from her. Yet he lost not a note, 
scarcely a word, she sang. It was the then popular, always 
beautiful air from Agathe, set to the English ballad, “ When 
the swallows homeward fly,” and was rendered by a fresh 
young voice, both sweet and strong, rising, in the impassioned 
crescendo of the concluding strains into power and melody that 
amazed and charmed the listener. He closed his eyes as she 
finished one verse, and lay, with parted lips and bated breath, 
hearkening to her and to the rain — the rain which had ceased 
to be discord. The patter upon the roof and against the glass 
kept up a subdued accompaniment to the warbling within. 
He forgot pain, fever, and loneliness while the concert con- 
tinued. For two other songs followed the first — one, a light, 
tripping roundelay, to which the rain-drops beat faster time 
than to the former ; the other, an Italian aria, very passably 
executed. 

“ Ruby ! ” called Nick Sloane from the foot of the stairs. 

Fleet footsteps passed the sick boy’s door, a dress rustled 
against the balustrade, and all was still again. 

“Who and what can she be?” thought Louis, curiously. 
“ A storm-stayed wayfarer, like myself? No ! I seem to recol- 
lect seeing a pretty girl down stairs last night, as I was coming 
to my senses, and Sloane ordered her about as if she were an 
appurtenance of the establishment. What imaginable rigid can 
he have to control one who looks and sings as she does — if she 
were the unseen musician ? ” 

His ideas floated back to the ph^t^yj^at had occupied them 


28 


ruby’s husband. 


a while ago. A gleam that would have been merry had it been 
less wistful, lighted his face. 

“ I am a shipwrecked mariner, and she is a siren — perhaps 
Circe in person. This is a marine grotto, with white walls, 
chalk shells and crystals, and sea-weed floor. I hear the surf 
booming overhead, and the enchantress would wile me into for- 
getfulness of the upper world I have left. I wish she would 
repeat the charm ! ” 

Mrs. Sloane brought him his breakfast with her own hands, 
and expressed pleasure at seeing him less feverish and more 
free from pain than when she had relieved her husband’s vigil, 
lie had little appetite, but his febrile symptoms accounted for 
that. 

“ I wish I could do your delicacies justice ! he said, with 
the courtesy natural to, if not habitual with him. “ I hope to - 
do better, in a day or two, if you will allow me to remain 
here until I am stronger. I must have lost a great deal of 
blood yesterday. I am unaccountably weak and giddy this 
morning.” 

“ Rest and quiet are all you absolutely require,” rejoined the 
hostess, collecting the tea equipage upon the waiter. 

The patient’s quick eye attended her every motion. He saw 
that the napkin covering the tray was clean and white ; that 
the cup, saucer, and sugar-dish were of old-fashioned china, 
translucent as an egg-shell ; that the oysters were stewed as he 
seldom ate them, even upon rich men’s tables ; that the toast 
was a wafer in thinness, and delicately browned ; the butter 
fancifully moulded ; and he marvelled more and more at the in- 
congruities of sporting Nick’s menage. 

“ Mr. Sloane wished me to say to you that he is ready tb go 
to Krawen,” continued the wife. “ He only waits for your 
commands.” 


There was a touch of proud deference in her manner, which 
Louis instantly perceived, and, as he imagined, appreciated. 
He understood more readily and clearly than if she bad told 
him, in so many woj^s, JJij^t she had not always been used 


ruby’s husband. 


29 


to await orders from lodgers ; that fortune had been cruel to 
her, and that, in bowing her will to the requirements of her 
changed circumstances, she yet felt keenly the fall from her 
higher position. Ilis innate gentlemanliness responded prompt- 
ly to the unuttered appeal to his respect and sympathy. 

“ Beg him from me not to expose himself to this storm, 
he said, earnestly. “ I am in want of nothing to-day which 
you cannot supply. As you have said, I require little medicine 
except rest, and the salve applied by Mr. Sloane is in high re- 
pute with the profession. You see,’* smiling, ‘‘ I am enough of 
a doctor already to despise drugs.” 

‘‘But your friends will, be uneasy!” objected Mrs. Sloane. 

The smile faded before a look half impatience, half gloom. 

“ There is no one on this continent who would be the less 
happy if- 1 were to retire from public view for a year, instead 
of a week. I look young to be my own master, I suppose, but 
I am such, nevertheless. Or, stay ! my prudent and excellent 
landlady may be ‘ uneasy ’ at my protracted absence. If Mr. 
Sloane is going to town to-morrow, or the day after, I will 
trouble him with a line to her and an order upon her for some 
articles of wearing apparel. Then ‘I shall be entirely com- 
fortable.” 

“ Don’t you think your shoulder had better be examined by 
a surgeon ? ” persisted the hostess. 

The arch smile returned. It became the usually pensive fea- 
tures well, and the accompanying intonation was sprightly and 
pleasant. 

“ My dear lady, haven’t I said that I am a bit of a doctor 
myself? I examined the wound yesterday, secundum artem. 
I ask your pardon ! I would say, in a highly professional style. 
The bone is uninjured, and flesh wounds in a healthy subject 
soon heal, if they are not too much handled. This is my maid- 
en case, and I am jealous of interference I ” 

He w'ould never have let slip the Latin phrase in conversation 
with Nick, but intuition told him his present auditor was quite 
capable of comprehending all he said. 

3 * 


30 


ruby’s husband. 


She appeared to be dissatisfied. 

“ I do not like to seem officious,” she said, slowly ; “ but I 
should regret it exceedingly if any unpleasant consequences 
should follow what would look to others like neglect on our 
part to procure proper attendance for you. Mr. Sloane goes 
out in all kinds of weather. I am afraid consideration for him 
prevents you from summoning your friends, or your physician.” 

“ I have no friends, and I am my own physician,” was the 
reply, hastily and rather warmly reiterated. “ I was so child- 
ish last night as to mention a fellow-student who goes from 
Krawen to Kroywen on the cars with me every morning. But 
he was to eat his Thanksgiving dinner with some country friends, 
and I doubt whether he has returned yet. If I am in your way 
here, please say so, frankly. If not, I am content without oth- 
er attendance than a couple of visits a day from Mr. Sloane or 
yourself.” 

He turned his flushed cheek to the pillow, and his gaze to the 
window with an expression not to be mistaken by the acute ob- 
server. The result of the colloquy was precisely what she most 
desired, but had hardly dared hope for. She detected, more cor- 
rectly than he supposed, the misanthropic perversity that dic- 
tated his rejection of her offers. He resented his isolation and 
friendlessness, and took puerile revenge upon Fate by determin- 
ing that not one feature of his situation should be mitigated. 
Too proud to complain of bodily anguish or heart yearnings, he 
had betrayed himself as the victim of both kinds of torture by 
the asperity of his refusals to seek medicine for either. 

“ Poor boy ! ” said Mrs. Sloane, in reporting the dialogue 
below stairs. “ He is terribly homesick, but he would be ready 
to knock you down if you were to hint it. It made me sorry 
for him to hear him say over and over that he had nobody to 
consult in his movements, and could come and go without being 
questioned.” 

“ He is the gamiest fellow I seen in a month of Sundays,” 
replied her husband. “ I guess, however. I’d better drive up to 
town, and get them clothes and whatever other fixings he wants. 


ruby’s husband. 


31 




He mought change his mind by to-morrow, and conceit some 
other plan. Better make sure of him while the humor is on 
him.” 

He stated the case to the lodger very differently. He had 
important business to attend to in town, and was going thither, 
whether Mr. Suydam had any message to send by him or not. 
He would gladly attend to any commission, &c., &c. 

“ If you will help me to dress first, I will write a few lines,” 
Louis conceded, finally. 

“ Dress ! You'd a plaguy sight better lay still ! ” Nick was 
not over-pleased at this marked advance towards recovery. 
“ You’ll catch cold — sure as a gun! and then there’ll be the 
deuce to pay 1 ” 

“ I’ll pay it I ” answered the other, dryly. ‘‘ If I am too 
tired to sit up, I will lie down again presently. Nobody but a 
milksop would keep his bed for a scratch like this.” 

He winced perceptibly, in spite of his doughty language, as 
he raised himself to a sitting posture. Nick made no comment 
upon this, or upon his increasing pallor, clenched teeth, and 
hard-drawn breath, as the toilet proceeded ; but when he thrust 
his uninjured arm into the sleeve of his hunting-sack, tried to 
button it at the throat, and reeled backward, the stalwart farrier 
caught and lifted him up bodily, as he would have done a child, 
placed him upon the bed, and stamped on the floor to summon 
assistance. Mrs. Sloane was not in the room beneath, as he 
affected to believe. It was hi^ daughter who answered the im- 
pei-ative call. 

“What is is, papa?” she said, mellifluously, '^opening the 
door just wide enough to insert the coy tip of her little finger, 
had she so desired. 

“ Come in ! Don’t stand upon silly ceremony, when a man 
is half dead ! ” said her parent, roughly. “ He’s clear off, this 
spell ! ” 

Mortifying as would be the circumstance to the disciple of 
muscular Christianity when he should come to a knowledge of 
it, it was not to be denied. The pout of defiant protest against 


32 


ruby’s husband. 


physical infirmity and mental disquiet had relaxed into the un- 
bent lines that denote utter prostration ; his hair clung to his 
damp brow, his hands were limp and heavy in Ruby’s, as she 
chafed them. The girl despised him for his “ babyishness,” 
while she hailed, with her father, the weakness that left him an 
unresisting prey'to their wiles. 

When he revived he offered no further opposition to Nick’s 
injunction to quiescence. 

“ More haste, less speed, Mr. Suydam ! ” said the jockey, 
philosophically. “Jest you rest easy where you be, and let 
the women folks take care of you, while I attend to that small 
matter of yourn up town. Where will I find your boarding- 
place ? ” ' 

“ If you will get me a sheet of paper and a pen, I will write 
a line,” said Louis, hesitating to remind his messenger that the 
wary landlady would not be so imprudent as to surrender his 
property to an unaccredited ambassador. 

Ruby glided from his side to a table in one corner of the 
room, where stood a small rosewood desk, the gift of a school- 
fellow. Before her father could reply, she was back at the 
bedside, with the open desk, a sheet of creamy note-paper laid 
out upon it, and in her fingers a pen already dipped in the 
standish. 

“ You are very kind,” smiled Louis, gratefully. 

But his hand was so tremulous he dared not adventure a 
stroke. After several futile attempts to steady it, he laid down 
the pen, and looked up, in chagrined helplessness, into Ruby’s 
face. 

She met the appeal promptly and kindly. 

“ If you will accept of my services as your amanuensis, I 
shall be happy to write your order. I think you can sign it. 
That will do — will it not? ” 

Louis dictated a short note to the keeper of the boarding- 
house, explaining that he had met with a slight injury in hunt- 
ing, which would confine him to the house for two or three days, 
but that he was well cared for, and needed nothing, excepting 


ruby’s husband. 


33 


liis dressing-case and a few articles of apparel, which the bearer, 
Mr. Sloane, would select from his drawers. Ruby would have 
laughed, if his eyes had not been upon her, at this modest eva- 
sion of the apparent necessity of enumerating the various pieces 
of clean linen he desired. But maidenly delicacy was her 
cue, no less than nursely tenderness. She penned the order in 
business-like gravity, and with no symptom of the gratified 
vanity that glowed in her bosom at the consciousness that a 
pair of fine hazel eyes lingered alternately upon her countenance 
and the white hand moving gracefully over the paper, while 
wonder and admiration were too clearly expressed in their 
speaking depths to be unread by her cunning perceptions. Her 
smile, in presenting the billet for his signature, was respectfully 
encouraging, and she, in her turn, watched, with flattering 
interest, the slender fingers that slowly achieved the signature, 
“ Louis Suydam.’’ 

As she replaced the desk upon the corner stand, she heard 
him speak low and hurriedly to her father, and stooped lower 
over the table to hide her amusement at his fastidious reserve. 

“ As if I didn’t know that men wear underclothing ! ” said 
Nick Sloane’s daughter to herself. “ He is a regular Miss 
Nancy ! ” 

Ruby ! ” called her father, before she turned, “ your ma 
is too busy this morning to attend to Mr. Suydam as much as 
she had ought to. You’d better stay in hearing. May be, if 
he wouldn’t mind, you’d as well bring your sewing or your 
book in here, for a spell. He might swound away all alone 
by himself, and never come to.” 

There is no danger of that, I hope ! ” rejoined Louis, 
quickly. “ I will not impose so far upon the young lady’s time 
and patience as to demand her constant attendance. If she can 
furnish me with a book, I can amuse myself very well, and I 
sliall want nothing except a drink now and then.” 

Ruby, who had colored prettily at her father’s proposition, 
answered by selecting several volumes from a row upon a little 
hanging shelf — another school-keepsake. While he looked them 


34 


ruby’s husband. 


over, she disappeared for an instant, bringing back with her a 
hand-bell. 

“ Please touch that if you want anything,” she said, simply. 

*She surmised that her father had gone a step too far in his 
manoeuvres for attracting the stranger’s attention to her, Ilis 
desire to make her the patient’s custodian was equivalent to 
throwing her at his head. She would not be forced upon his 
notice. She went through the form of arranging pitcher, glass, 
and cologne flask upon a stand beside the bed, swept up the 
hearth, put together the fallen brands, and added a stick to the 
fire, preserving the look of serious simplicity she had assumed 
to cover her progenitor’s faux pas. This done, she went out, 
inclining her head respectfully in passing the bed. 

“ What a grand creature she is ! ” commented Louis, left 
thus alone. “ What mysterious decree of Nature or Provi- 
dence has condemned her to the life she must lead as this boor’s 
daughter ? She must be a step-child. Her mother has the air 
of having seen better days. In a different dress, and in other 
circumstances, she would pass for a gentlewoman. And this 
girl has the carriage of a duchess. The whole afiair begins to 
take the flavor of an adventure.’’ 

Meanwhile the duchess was quarrelling vehemently in the 
kitchen with her father. 

“ If you are going to interfere in this style, I will throw up 
the whole undertaking,” she said, her eyes yellow with anger, 
her lips trembling like a baby’s. “ The fellow is a ‘ muft',’ and 
he can be caught as easily as I can lift my finger, if you will 
leave him to ma and me. But he is squeamish as an old maid, 
and you disgusted him, offering to leave me there to mind him 
and keep him from fainting or hysterical fits. He flared up in 
a minute. It is to your interest to have me well off your hands, 
as much as it is to mine to go ; but until the game is sure, you 
must play second fiddle. I hope you understand ! ” 

Big Nick glowered at her in sullen ferocity. 

“ Shut up ! ” he ordered, with an oath. “ You are on your 
high horse to-day, with a vengeance ! There’ll be no managing 


ruby’s husband. 


85 


you soon. This comes of your ma’s precious book-learning. 
If you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head, I’ll make you.” 

“ There, Nicholas ! that will do ! ” interrupted his wife, lay- 
ing her hand upon his shoulder, with a decided impetus towards 
the door. “ No good can come of disputing over what cannot 
be mended now. It is time you were off.” 

He obeyed, with another smothered oath, and the fair Rubina 
sat down in a kitchen chair, and cried with vexation. Her 
mother did not address her for some moments, although casting 
frequent and compassionate glances at her in her passage from 
table to stove, where she was busy with her semi-weekly baking. 
At length, as the sobs of the distressed damsel became more 
violent, the wise parent brought from a cupboard a plate con- 
taining a couple of oranges, half a dozen apples, and a heap of 
nuts and candy. 

“ Here, darling, I set these away for you against a rainy 
day. I know you are apt to be low-spirited in stormy weather, 
and these east winds are very depressing. Don’t cry any more, 
my pet ! It distresses me to see you worried. Now listen to 
your mother’s plan for your comfort. The fire is all laid in the 
parlor for lighting. I will kindle a pleasant blaze there in a 
minute, and you can lie upon the sofa, and read and eat your 
lunch. If Mr. Suydam should ring, I will go up.” 

The humored “pet” vouchsafing to signify her willingness 
to receive this species of consolation, the proposed arrangement 
was quickly carried into effect. The parlor was a dingy room, 
with faded carpet, bare walls and windows, and meagrely fur- 
nished with a few articles saved from the wreck of Agnes 
Sloane’s departed fortune — a small, discordant piano, half a 
dozen chairs, with hair-cloth seats and very upright backs, a 
couple of card-tables, clumsy and melancholy, that seemed to 
be doing penance in their useless seclusion for the question- 
able gayeties of other days, and a ponderous sofa, also covered 
with slippery hair-cloth. This Mrs.. Sloane Iiad drawn up in 
front of the stove, in which the dry kindling-wood crackled and 
roared. She laid, at the end nearest the front windows, two 


36 


ruby’s husband. 


pillows from her own bed-room, and, when the daughter was 
comfortably curled up against these^ covered her with a heavy 
blanket shawl, . tucking it well about her feet. The plate of 
confectionery was set upon a chair, within easy reach of her 
lazy arm ; and the mother paused for further commands, — or, 
as was less likely, for some acknowledgment that her cares had 
wrought passable^ contentment in their object. The smooth 
forehead was roughened by a frown by the time Ruby was 
fairly established. 

“ Pshaw ! I haven’t my book, after all ! It does seem as if 
things always conspired against my ease and happiness ! I 
thought you would certainly see it, and bring it with you, when 
you went for the pillows. You saw me reading it yesterday 
afternoon. It is ‘ The Blighted Bride,’ a pamphlet, with a 
purple cover, and a picture on it. It is either in your room or 
on the kitchen mantel.” 

The mother sought it with speed, and, luckily espying it upon 
a shelf above the kitchen dresser, hied back to the expectant 
step-child of fate, — against whom “ things ” were in such 
deadly conspiracy. She was peeling an orange — tearing off 
the deep yellow rind so carelessly that the juice escaped through 
divers fissures in the inner skin, and ran over her fingers. Mrs. 
Sloane deposited the pamphlet upon the chair, and made another 
jo-urney to the kitchen for a wet towel. Upon this the taper 
digits were wiped, and, her mouth crammed with the juicy 
fruit. Ruby opened her novel, and nodded to her mother leave 
to absent herself until she should have further need of her 
services. 

Two hours later Mrs. Sloane looked in to see if the fire 
needed replenishing. The purple hrocJ\wi'e had fallen to the 
floor, the white hands lay listlessly onj^fie'dark gray shawl, the 
fall of the eyelashes was like golden fringe upon the cheek, 
flushed with slumber. Ruby had forgotten the invalid, her 
duties as principal nurse, and the merciless onslaught of un- 
toward “ things,” in a sound nap. The doting mother stood 
over her and surveyed the — for once — unconscious beauty 


ruby’s husband. 


87 


with a proud delight, that brought the moisture to her keen, 
dark eyes. 

“ My precious angel ! ” she murmured, fervently, stooping 
for the fallen book, and to lay yet another fold of the shawl 
over the recumbent figure. “ Your mother would give her 
very life to make you happy ! ” 

Rubina would have sneered had she overheard the soliloquy. 
Perhaps real angels did hear, and wrote it down to the lonely' 
woman’s credit. 


38 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER III. 

On the tenth day of Louis Suydam’s confinement to the 
house came the first “hard freeze” of the winter. From his 
chair near the parlor stove he saw the marshes blackened by 
frost as by fire ; the slant arrows of sunlight shivered upon the 
glassy surface of the pools left by the late heavy rains and high 
tides ; loaded express wagons hurried along the turnpike by im- 
patient drivers ; occasionally, a light trotting sulky flashing up 
or down the smooth road, the occupant muffled to the ears in 
furs, and holding on hard to the taut rein with benumbed 
fingers, while, farther to the east, there thundered at frequent 
and shortening intervals, as night approached apace, long lines 
of cars, each led by a swift, steady engine, leaving behind it a 
trail of smoke that arose and broke slowly in the still air. 

“It is your move! What are you dreaming about?” said 
Ruby Sloane. 

Not pettislily, as she would have done had either of her 
parents failed in attention to her presence or wishes, but in 
amusement that stirred her pretty lips in a roguish smile, and 
glanced over her eyes very much as the setting sun played upon 
the pools in the meadow. Louis’s look came back to her and 
the backgammon board set between them. 

“ Excuse me I I was looking al the reflection of the sunset 
upon the smoke from that locomotive, and moralizing upon the 
same.” 

Ruby leaned slightly forward to gaze through the window, 
apparently excited to lively interest in the phenomenon. 

“ You certainly have the faculty of discovering beauty where 


ruby’s husband. 


39 


no one else would ever think of looking for it ! ” she remarked, 
flatteringly. “ I never before saw anything to admire about a 
train of cars.’* 

“ Is that so? They are to me a continual and growing w’on- 
der, although I have seen them every day from my boyhood. 
There comes another, just crossing tlie bridge. Doesn’t the 
calm, resistless progress of that mail-clad monster remind you 
of the onward march of Fate, never turning aside a hair's 
breadth from her appointed course, halting only at the bidding 
of the Great Engineer to fulfil what may be called his side-pur- 
poses, or to gather force for her forward journey, until the goal 
of Destiny is reached ? ” 

This comparison may have bordered upon bathos, and was 
very unintelligible to his auditor ; but she looked all attention 
and admiration, at the great black cylinder, mounted upon four 
wheels, with the smoke-stack rising above. 

“ What an imagination you have ! I shall never see an 
engine again without thinking of you.” 

“ I shall, then, be often in your thoughts. I am under heavier 
obligations to my fancy than I ever thought to be ! ” rejoined 
Louis, with mingled gallantry and seriousness. “ And while 
we are speaking of remembrance in absence, may I tell you 
that I shall go down to the city every morning in the 8.30 train, 
and return in the 5.10 P. M? Will you, once in a w'hile, throw 
a glance at and a kindly wish after me, as I am borne onward in* 
my busy, lonely life ? And — let me see — if you w^ere, by some 
happy accident, to be near the window at the time I passed, and 
happened, by a chance as felicitous, to have your handkerchief 
in your hand — ” 

“ And the breeze were to happen to w*ave it, could you see it 
from the cars ? ” interposed Ruby, laughing. ‘‘ Yes, you could. 
And what then ? ” 

“ I should accept it as a happy omen for that day,” was the 
reply. “ I should not forget, in the midst of study and strangers, 
thkt one kind heart had me in recollection — one friend desired 
sincerely my w^elfare and success. Am I presumptuous in asking 


40 


ruby’s husband. 


you to grant me, now and then, this token of interest and good- 
will ? 

Ruby had dropped her eyelids, and was fingering the pieces 
upon the board nervously. A deeper tint sufiused her cheeks ; 
the red lips were tremulous. Louis had time to notice these 
signs of emotion with surprise, that soon thrilled into other and 
less explicable feelings, before she replied, — 

“ Certainly not ! It is a slight favor to bestow upon one who 
has whiled away so many hours for me, that would have been 
solitary and gloomy but for his cheerful society.” 

The speech had cost her some trouble to construct, and her 
doubt whether she could deliver it creditably imparted an air 
of diffidence to her address, that struck Louis as peculiarly be- 
witching. His next remark was not studied. 

“ You will miss me, then ! Thank you for the assurance ! 
It is more precious than you can imagine to a poor wretch like 
myself, who is homeless and all but friendless. I am very young 
in years, Ruby, but I am an old man in experience of the darker 
phases of human nature. Fate has been very unkind to me. I 
had a dearly-loved sister, and Death took her. I had a mother, 
and Fashion robbed me of her. The thirst for money and power 
deprived me of my father. My brothers were never brothers to 
me, except in name. I have had two intimate companions, who 
swore eternal friendship for me. Both deceived and deserted 
me. The ambition to excel in my chosen profession, to win for 
myself an honorable name from those who now overlook and 
despise me, is all that is left to incite me to exertion to keep 
my feet in the rush and scramble men call life. I am going 
back to it to-morrow ! ” he added, an expression of extreme 
distaste usurping the place of his late animation. “ And when 
I leave the 7nUee at nightfall, it will be for my lonely rooms in 
an overcrowded boarding-house. I shall read a little ; grow 
tired, and write a little ; grow weary of that, and play a while, 
unless 1 am deterred from this recreation by the fear that the 
music may attract to my door some of the idle youths in the 
neighboring apartments. If they demand admittance, they will 


ruby’s husband. 


41 


sit over my fire until midnight, smoking my cigars, drinking my 
wine, and retailing their witless or disgusting anecdotes. There 
you have the history of one day ; and they all drag by in the 
same style.” 

Ruby said within her secret self that she could make a jolly 
life out of the materials enumerated, particularly the element 
of the fast young men. Without forgetting her cue of senti- 
mental sympathy, she suggested amelioration in the form she 
deemed most rational. . 

‘‘ Are you never invited to parties ! ” 

“ Yes, twice a week on an average. Single men, who can 
afford to wear dress-coats, are at a premium in Kravveu.” 

“ And do you not go? ” 

“ Never ! I attended a few a year ago. They were all alike 
— the same overdressed women and the same dandies flirted, and 
danced, and chatted the same small nothings ; the baud played 
a certain number of marches, waltzes, and polkas at each ; the 
very suppers were stereotyped. The rooms were always hot, 
and thronged to suffocation. Those who did not have cham- 
pagne-headaches next day suffered from the effects of an immod- 
erate dose of nitrogen. I have a prejudice in favor of breathing 
air that has not been previously devitalized by passage through 
some dozen pairs of lungs.” 

Ruby laughed musically. 

“ What an idea ! You are a strange mortal — so unlike 
anybody else I ever saw ! I thought all young people enjoyed 
parties. I used to like those we had at school — May Days, 
Examination Feasts, and the like. We all wore white muslin 
and blue ribbons, and were very sorry when the time for 
breaking-up came. I fancied that all others were as delight- 
ful,” said the artless creature, with a sigh to the memory of 
vanished joys. 

“ You are a perfect child of nature ! — a snowdrop of inno- 
cence and simplicity, springing up in these meadow-lands ! ” 
The llase citizen of the world surveyed her with admiring 
reverence. “ I cannot conceive of a greater contrast to the 


42 


ruby’s husband. 


artificial dolls of society I have been describing, than is pre- 
sented by your life. It is pure and beautiful as that of a wild 
flower — a sweet .and lovely pastoral I am glad to have read 
even at the cost of a week of pain and fever. You have re- 
freshed and strengthened me — done me more good than I can 
tell you. May I sometimes run over to see you, when I am 
more than usually weary and heart sick ? ” 

Ruby colored yet more brightly ; but her face was very grave 
as she raised it to a level with his, and gazed steadily at him. 

“ Are you sure that you will desire it, when you are back in 
your own circle? Our sphere is very humble, Mr. Suydam. 
The friends who respected and visited us in our prosperous days 
have left and forgotten us. You would lose caste were it 
suspected that you ever honored our lowly dwelling with your 
presence.’’ 

She played cunningly upon a sensitive chord. 

“ My circle ! How many times shall I repeat that I have 
none? I am utterly irresponsible for my actions to any human 
, being. I can be happy — or miserable — in my own way ; may 
. sit unmolested under my vine and fig-tree, or growl at mankind 
and Providence under my withered gourd, as Fortune may dic- 
tate. Unless you forbid it, I shall often revisit a home in which 
I have tasted more of peace and happiness than has fallen to 
my lot in many years.” 

“ But when your parents return, they may find fault with 
your choice of associates.” 

“My parents, having left me so long to my own devices, 
cannot complain if I have made my selection of friends with 
reference to my own pleasure, not their approval. Let me 
lay your dutiful scruples to rest by one statement. Neither my 
father nor my mother is likely to inquire who are my associates 
or intimates. My happiness is a matter too trivial to merit their 
notice. These reflections make me reckless, sometimes. Ruby ! ” 
he continued, with sudden vehemence. “ It is a fearful ordeal 
for a young and sensitive man — this consciousness that, while 
he is struggling to keep his head above the Ij^llows of this 


ruby’s husband. 


43 


world’s trials and temptations, no friendly or loving eye is 
watching him ; that, if he sink, none will mourn ; if he swim 
to land, none will welcome him after his victory. Do you 
begin to understand now why the cordial warmth, the affec- 
tionate kindliness with which I have been treated under this 
roof, have been to me like rain in drought — like cooling fruit 
to a fevered palate? Yet you would banish me? ” 

“ No, indeed ! ” The blush was burning now, and her eyes 
were completely veiled. “ I only dreaded lest your intercourse 
with us should be hurtful to you. It can never be anything 
but pleasant to us, cut off, as we are, from the rest of our kind. 
I have literally no society. I might as well be in a convent as 
in my father’s house. My mother is extremely fastidious about 
my choice of companions. I never come down stairs when my 
father’s sporting acquaintances are here.” 

“ Unless a gun bursts and puts the suspicious character, for 
a while, hors de combat I ” interpolated Louis, gayly. 

“ I should not have been afraid of you^ had no such accident 
occurred,” was the quick, yet sly response. “ You could never 
be anything but a gentleman. You would show a poor un- 
known girl the same consideration you would accord to the 
richest lady in the land.” 

“ Thank you, heartily ! I believe your praise is sincere, and 
I shall try to deserve it. To return to my petition. I shall 
come often. It is but a short drive from Krawen — which will 
be duller than ever now — to your door, and not a long walk to 
a notable pedestrian like your humble servant. I shall bring you 
books and music ; and if I should send a piano in this direc- 
tion, some fine day, just to get it out of my way, you will give 
it house-room, and practise upon it enough to keep it from 
getting as much out of tune as is that venerable instrument 
over there — won’t you ? ” 

Ruby hid her face in her hands. 

“ You are too good ! too generous ! O, I did not think there 
was a person in the world who w^ould show me such kindness I” 
she said, breaking off with a well-achieved sob. 


44 


ruby’s husband. 


“ Nonsense, my dear cliild ! ” returned the hoary benefactor, 
his own eyes dewy with the delight of conferring favors so 
highly prized by the recipient. “ I am merely pleasing my- 
self — don’t you see? My French and music are getting rusty. 
We will read and play together. When I am sad-hearted, you 
shall cheer me ; and I will bring into your conventual seclusion a 
slight breeze from the outer world. Occasionally, if your mother 
is willing to intrust you to me, we will slip over to Kroywen, 
and hear a rarely-fine opera, or see a really excellent drama. 
The winter will be less dreary to us- both with these helps 
against ennui. Is it not so ? ” 

The white hands were clasped upon the table ; the counte- 
nance above them beamed wuth rapturous gratitude. 

“Less dreary ! To me it will be like Fairy-land ! I have never 
heard an opera — never been within the walls of a theatre ! ” 

She said nothing about circuses and negro minstrels — the 
entertainments she, with her father, most affected. 

Louis’s face was one glow of reflected radiance. This was 
the purest cup of joy he had ever quaffed — the recompense of 
disinterested beneficence. It was something worth doing — to 
bring in a flood of pleasure upon this young girl’s life, else so 
dull in its monotony. He revelled in the anticipation of wit- 
nessing her naive delight in the occupations and amusements he 
had promised. He even hoped to enjoy them himself, in com- 
pany with the ardent and unsophisticated maiden. She was an 
engaging study — innocent, tender, and frank, yet intellectually 
capable of entering into his views of and aims in life. She 
was a new revelation to his jaded spirit. From his hea^;t ho 
blessed the chance that had cast him upon the hospitality of the 
isolated family, unpleasant as it had seemed at first. Thus he 
mused and planned, facing the eastern window, while the city 
spires faded out upon the pale horizon, and darkness stole over 
the meadows, illuminated only by the great unwinking eye set 
in the front of the Cyclops, roaring along the iron track, scat- 
tering live coals upon the earth, that shook under his tramp, and 
snorting fire and vapor from his tremendous lun^. 


ruby’s husband. 


45 


Louis spoke again, very softly, when twilight had draped the 
bare walls, hidden the ungraceful outlines of the scanty furni- 
ture, and spread the same shade of friendly gray over the dingy 
carpet. 

“ Sing to me, once more. Ruby ! I shall be beyond the sound 
of your lullaby to-morrow evening.” 

“ I am not sure that I can ! ” 

The words were simple enough. The intonation, and the 
haste in which they were hurried over, said, “ I cannot trust 
my voice when I think of your going ! ” 

Yet she began her song, after a moment’s hesitation. He 
was never tired of hearing Agathe ” from her — never weary 
of telling her of the effect it had produced upon him on the 
rainy morning succeeding his accident ; and she comprehended 
that he would have named this ballad now had she asked him 
for his choice. So she sang it, with fervor and pathos that 
made his nerves vibrate and his heart ache. Her music master 
had — as his disrespectful scholars used to phrase it — “ ex- 
pression on the brain ; ” and he had often complimented Miss 
Sioane upon her aptitude in catching his rendering of the songs 
he taught her. She learned by rote with ease and quickness, 
reproducing not only words, but tones and accents so accurately 
as to delude most listeners into a belief that she understood and 
felt the meaning of author and composer. Music was her forte, 
if she had any other than self-love. Romance was omitted in 
her making-up. She read novels, it is true, but as she would 
tales of another existence, and of a foreign land she never ex- 
pected to visit. From her infancy she had looked forward to 
marriage with a, rich man as the only means of deliverance 
from her ignoble condition. She considered herself now in a 
fair way to the accomplishment of this desirable end ; but she 
was not carried out of herself by girlish flutteriugs and love- 
sick dreaming. She calculated and traded upon her charms as 
her father w'ould have done upon the “ telling ” points of a filly 
placed in his hands for sale. 

“ 1 married f»r love. You have sense enough to do better,” 


46 


ruby’s husband. 


X 


her mother had once said to her, in one of the very few mo- 
ments of confidence poor Agnes had allowed to her disappointed 
heart since the grand mistake of her life was committed. 

And the shifts, privations, and toils of their daily existence 
were to the daughter so many commejjtaries upon the text. 
Those who have watched the adroitness with which she angled 
for the fish Fortune now ofiered, may judge for themselves how 
much faith to put in her professions of inexperience in the ways 
of the wicked world and non-familiarity with beings of the oppo- 
site and more guileful sex. It is sufficient for the present pur- 
pose of our tale to state that Louis Suydam relied implicitly 
upon every word that fell from her cherry lips, received as a 
verity, not to be controverted by so much as a doubting thought, 
her account of her past life, her character, disposition, and 
tastes. He did not dream of falling in love with her, or, for 
that matter, with anybody else, for years to come, when he 
should have a name and fortune of his own making to offer 
some peerless bride. . But his imagination was captivated by 
her beauty, his feelings enlisted by her lonely position, her 
amiability, her nobility (If soul, and her manifest interest in 
whatever related to him.- He foresaw pleasure to himself and 
benefit to her from their' future intercourse. It was well for 
every young man to have a woman friend. His newly-discov- 
ered treasure of purest ray serene should be to him confidante, 
pupil, and sister. The growth of their acquaintanceship had 
been rapid, under the propitious influences of propinquity, of 
weakness and need on his part, and kindly offices on hers ; 
and, superadded to these, the flavor of novelty and romance iu 
his adventure was highly agreeable to his ^te. He talked 
like a cynical cosmopolite. He was in realil^ka morbidly sen- 
sitive boy, girding at the world, because it denied him the home 
he craved ; at mankind, because he had failed, thus far, in find- 
ing the kindred spirit for which he longed. He was not the 
first nor the last of his species who has mistaken the faintness ^ 
of heart-hunger for satiety. 

While Ruby sang, he paced the floor slowly and without 


euby’s husband. 


47 


sound. The stars came out, large and bright, in the frosty 
heavens ; the fiery eye lighted up the level track less frequently, 
since the throng of home-goers ceased to press outward from 
the city ; the house was quiet as though set in the middle of a 
desert. 

Blessed quiet ! happy rest ! How often, during the days and 
years to come, would he long for this humble cottage, and its 
atmosphere of love and pe^ce ! How blissful, after the toil of 
every-day life, would be the evening seclusion of this modest 
roof, tlie twilight promenade and reverie, with Ruby to sing 
sorrow and care to sleep ! 

Had Mrs. Sloane been cognizant of the drift of his medita- 
tions, she would have chosen any other minute than that for 
diverting them. He started, as from a dream of far-off things, 
when she opened the door of communication with the rear 
room. 

“ Why, you are in the dark here I ” was her surprised 
exclamation. “ My daughter, you should have lighted the 
lamp.” ' 

“ Mr. Suydam said, last evening, that the light hurt his eyes, 
mamma. And the darkness has come on so gradually we have 
not noticed it,” rejoined the daughter, respectfully deprecating. 

“ What tact 1 What readiness and grace of explanation 1 ” 
thought Louis, who had been momentarily confused by the 
interruption, and the discovery that they had been sitting in 
total gloom for half an hour at the least. 

The prudent mother’s scruples were satisfied by the reply. 

“ Kerosene is a poor substitute for gas,” she apologized to the 
guest, “ and far unpleasant to the eyes. But it is the best 

we can get at thif^istance from town.” 

“ You citizens are selfish creatures,” said Ruby, jestingly, 
“ or you would lend ns a few gas-pipes from your abundance. 
You keep all your good things to yourselves.” 

Not a 'brilliant observation, certainly ; but Louis made use 
of it as a peg upon which to hang a speech, half tender, half 
gallant. 


48 


ruby’s husband. 


“,/rhe good things which can be bought, you mean. Lifers 
ir^^st precious treasures are not to be purchased ; nor do cities 
enjoy a monopoly — seldom an abundance — of them.’^ 

Then they obeyed Mrs. Sloane’s summons to supper — a 
carefully-prepared meal, to which the young gentleman paid the 
homage of a convalescent’s appetite, and of which the young 
lady partook more sparingly than her inclination prompted. 
She compensated herself for this sacrifice to the genius of deco- ' 
rous pensiveness that night, w^hen Louis had gone to his room, 
after exchanging a “ good night ” with her that w^as more than 
pensive, without being less than decorous. 

“ I am hungry as a hound ! ” ejaculated his snow-drop, ap- 
proaching the pantry. “ I didn’t dare eat as much as I wanted 
at supper. What fools men are, to insist upon women’s living 
and growing plump upon one third of W’hat it takes to support 
life in one of their gender ! ” 

Her father took his pipe from his lips to laugh, as she seized 
a leg of chicken, and fastened her wdiite teeth in it. 

“ That’s the way with all of you ! You can’t manage more 
than the pinion of a quail and half a pea, at dinner, when there’s 
a beau by ; but if he is a sly one, he can catch the most peaking 
and die-away of you gobbling it by the plateful behind the 
kitchen door. Women are the deceitfulest creturs in natur’.” 

There was no affectation of sentiment in Louis Suydam’s 
slender appetite for his supper on the following evening. He 
had sent his valise to his boarding-house by Nick, and taken 
the nine o’clock train to Kroywen that morning, to report him- 
self to the medical faculty of his college. His excuse for his 
prolonged absence was accepted, with a passing inquiry as to 
the present state of his w^ounded arm; arfd there the matter 
w\as dropped. Two or three of the students put a careless 
query, in meeting him, as to what he had been doing with 
himself since Thanksgiving, and said, “ Ah ! ” “ Indeed ! ” 
or, “ Sorry to hear it,” upon learning the cause of his non- 
appearance in the lecture-room. But there w^as an interesting- 

o 

operation to be performed in the clinical hall that forenoon, 


ruby’s husband. 


49 


and the minds and tongues of all were too much engrossed by 
it to spare more than a moiety of attention to minor matters. 
Louis sat among the rest, apparently intent upon the motions 
and words of the principal surgeon, and, like the others, jotted 
down leading particulars within his note-book ; but he shud- 
dered and paled as the knife flashed in and out among arteries, 
nerves, and muscles, although the subject of the wonderful dis- 
play of scientific skill lay motionless under the benignant spell 
of a powerful anesthetic. Personal experience of suffering is 
a swift teacher, and the newly-closed rent in his own flesh ached 
and tingled with sympathy which was very human and very 
unprofessional. 

“ You are white as a girl ! I thought your nerve never failed 
you ! ” observed the young man next to him, as they arose to 
leave the hall. 

“ I am not nervous — only tired. I am not quite strong yet,” 
answered Louis, with a perceptible effort to pull himself together, 
and looking the girl yet more in his blush of shame at the weak- 
ness he could not hide. “ By the way, Durand, can you lend 
me your notes of the lectures I have missed on account of this 
unlucky adventure? I will return them to-morrow.” 

He asked the favor ungraciously, because it was one. It 
irked him to lie under any obligation, however slight, to the 
classmates, with whom he had never sought to gain popularity. 
Durand hesitated, reddening in his turn. 

“ I would, with pleasure, Suydam ; but you could not deci- 
pher them without the aid of an interpreter. 1 write an infer- 
nal hand at the best, and — ” 

“ All right ! It is immaterial to me ! Good afternoon ! ” 
interrupted Suydam, walking off'. 

II is fellow-student had stated the true reason for not comply- 
ing readily with his request ; but this the nascent Timon would 
in no wise believe. 

“ A shallow pretence ! An exhibition of mean spite ! The 
device of pitiful envy and unwillingness to aid a possible rival 
for class honors ! ” he muttered, on his way down the street. 

4 


50 


ruby’s husband. 


,The fancied rebuff contributed more than bis pride would 
allow him to think to the extreme depression of spirit Avith 
which he took his seat in the cars for Krawen. He had 
secured a place on the western side of the train ; and from the 
moment it came in sight, he saw nothing in the uninviting land- 
scape save the solitary house standing midway between the two 
cities. The windows looking westward w^ere sheets of fire ; a 
spiral column of blue smoke arose from one chimney ; the sur- 
rounding meadows were rosy under the latest sun-rays. To liis 
perturbed soul the isolated home spoke of repose and 'quiet con- 
tentment such as he had known nowhere else — such as he 
might never taste again. As he approached the point nearest 
it on the line of the railroad, he stepped out upon the platform, 
and without attracting the notice of any one on the car, drew 
his handkerchief from his pocket. The rush of air created by 
the passage of the train caught and fluttered it until it streamed 
like a pennon upon the breeze. He had named this early hour 
as the possible time of his return on this particular evening. 
Would Ruby remember it? His sight was good, and even in 
the delusive shimmer of the sunset he saw distinctly the an- 
SAvering wave — like the glimpse of an angel’s wing, he said to 
himself — from the casement through Avhich he -and Ruby had, 
yestereve, gazed upon the flying Cyclops. 

Just twenty-four hours ago ! Would all the days to come be 
as long as this had been ? It Avas piercingly cold ; and Avhen 
the next curve hid the cottage from his longing eyes, he was 
glad to return to warmer quarters. Nobody spoke to him. 
He knew many faces about him by sight, but he had no com- 
mon interest Avith any of their oAvners. Unchallenged, he 
alighted at the depot ; unaccompanied, except by his gloomy 
thoughts, he tramped hurriedly along the pavements, that 
seemed not only colder, but harder than usual, on this bitter 
evening, until he reached his lodgings. The halls Avere de- 
serted, for a Avonder, for the house teemed Avith population. 
Still unchallenged, he entered his room. A fire burned in the 
grate; but it Avas neAvly kindled, and the chamber felt close 


euby’s husband. 


51 


and chill as a vault. Before it was warm the supper-gong 
sounded ; and, in the hope that a cup of hot tea would quicken 
his blood into livelier circulation, Louis obeyed the summons. 

lie received a smiling bow from the suave landlady, seated 
at the head of the long table ; his neighbors to the right and 
left said, “ Good evening ; ” and* one benevolent old lady, oppo- 
site, added to her salutation, “Are you entirely well again, Mr. 
iSuydam ? I hear you have met with quite a misfortune lately.’’ 

“ I am well, thank you, madam. The accident did not de- 
serve a mention,” he replied, coldly. 

He dreaded being made the object of boarding-house gossip. 
And the old lady, who had always considered him “a reserved, 
unapproachable, and almost disagreeable youth — excessively 
uncomfortable, in fact, my dear,” was confirmed in her opinion, 
and let him alone. His tea was tepid, the toast smoked, and, 
in lieu of the fragrant rasher, sausage, oysters, or birds, Mrs. 
Sloane was wont to serve up, smoking hot, on winter nights, a 
pert waiter gave him his choice of cold mutton — very white and 
tough — and smoked' beef — very black and hard. He drank 
the tea, being thirsty, nibbled a corner of the toast, and looked 
at the “ relish ” — so known in boarding-house nomenclature. 
Having, by these various processes, consumed fifteen minute.^,' 
he left unnoticed the sawdust cakes and stewed apples that 
completed the bill of fare, pushed back his chair, and sought 
his desolate chamber again. 

Desolate as were the house and the city, in the dearth of all 
that makes life bright and desirable, — as would be the world 
but for that humble dwelling over yonder upon the marshes. 
He was too tired to work. He had no one with whom to con- 
verse. He sat down in his arm-chair, rested his head within 
the concave of his clasped hands, and thought of Kuby Sloane 
— her volumes of dusky-red hair, the snow and carmine of her 
complexion, the pensive fall of her eyelids, the dewy coral of 
her lips, and the tremor of the beseeching tones that had said 
to him, at parting, “You will let us see you again before very 
long — will you not ? ” 

Would he? 


52 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Whatever might be the shortcomings of Suydam pere 
towards his youngest son, parsimony was not among the num- 
ber. Louis’s allowance was liberal, and he was responsible to 
no one for the manner in which it was spent. 

“ I shall not increase it, let your pretext for asking me to do 
this' be never so plausible,” the father had notilied him. “ There- 
fore, since yOur expenses a year or two hence may be heavier 
than they now are, you will do well to practise a judicious 
economy. . I have made ample provision for reasonable needs 
and lawful pleasures. I have allowed nothing for vices. Re- 
member that ! ” 

,^/rhe friendless boy’s guardian angel had a powerful ally in 
ffib work of shielding him against the lower forms of dissipa- 
tion, in his innate refinement and aversion to whatever was 
belittling and base. The contemptuous sobriquet, “ My Lady,” 
applied to him behind his back by the gay youths of his ac- 
quaintance, expressed their appreciation of the finer grain of 
his nature, from which the arrows of sucl> temptations as over- 
powdered them glanced harmlessly. He w^as a riddle to them. 
He kept a small store of rare and costly wines, to which he 
made them welcome, in his grave, courtly way, w'hen they 
forced their society upon him for an evening, and finer cigars 
than they had the means of procuring ; yet he indulged himself 
sparingly in both luxuries. He invariably declined the invita- 
tions pressed upon him in return for these quietly-elegant enter- 
tainments, with, “Thank you — I seldom spend an evening 
out ; ” wdhile, if cards were proposed, and, as had several times 


ruby’s husband. 


53 


occurred, were introduced by some spirit bolder than the rest, 
lie met the motion with a formal, “ Please yourselves, gentle- 
men — my chambers are at your service. I never play myself; 
but do not let that interrupt your pastime.” 

“ Take him altogether, he was an unsocial, incomprehensible 
fellow,” decided the sharp blades who would otherwise have 
courted him assiduously, for the sake of his handsome income 
and prospective wealth. Thanks to this reputation, attacks 
upon his purse and morals were now comparatively infrequent ; 
and it was an easy matter to husband his resources to meet the 
increased expenditures of which he had been warned. He looked 
forward to the day when he should commence the practice of 
his profession, and the honest pride with which he should an- 
nounce to his father that office-hire, horse and carriage should 
be paid for out of the balance due him at the bank, in which 
his allowance was statedly deposited. It would seem but a 
sordid day-dream to others of his age and sex ; but it contrib- 
uted in no slight degree to the temperance and frugality of 
his life. 

That the study and practice of these unfashionable virtues 
had not cramped generosity, was proved by the alacrity with 
which he set about redeeming his promise to Ruby, to enlivS^ 
by every means at his command, the conventual dullness of her 
condition. Before breakfast on the morning following his return 
to town, he had been to a music-store and hired a piano, which 
was to be sent before noon to Mr. Sloaue’s house. He was 
careful to select a good, although not a showy instrument ; and 
upon the same furniture-van went out a present to Mrs. Sloane — 
a pretty and commodious easy-chair. He made time, moreover, 
between lectures that day, to select a quantity of sheet-music, — 
mostly duets, — instrumental and vocal, and half a dozen choice 
French books, which he designed to deliver in person. Despatch- 
ing his evening meal more expeditiously — if that could be — 
than upon the preceding night, he was speedily on his way to 
the roadside cottage. It was bright starlight ; and beyond the 
city the macadamized road, white with dint-dust, was clearly 


54 


ruby’s husband. 


discernible, bordered by stunted willows, and stretching away 
into the level waste, a sea of darkness, bounded north and south 
by the horizon-glare that never went out. It was very early — 
only half past seven ; but the turnpike was almost deserted. 
None lingered abroad in that stinging frost, who could seek 
home and fireside. 

“As I am doing ! ” said Louis, drawing up the fur robes 
more closely about him, and urging his horse to a brisker trot, 
as he saw, a mile ahead, the twinkle of the light in the kitchen 
window he had begged Mrs. Sloane always to leave unshut- 
tered until nine o’clock, as a guiding-star for him. 

A few minutes more, and he drew up at the side entrance, 
having driven around into the 'stable-yard. Before he could 
spring to the ground, a flood of light from the open door 
streamed over him, and Nick’s stentorian voice hailed him. 

“ Come in ! come in ! I’ll look after your animal. You 
must be nigh frozen. Delighted to see you.” 

Mrs. Sloane echoed the last sentence in as cordial but gen- 
tler accents, meeting him upon the threshold ; and just within 
the kitchen stood Ruby, all dimples and blushes, holding out 

♦ ;h hands in the excitement of the joyful surprise. A surprise 
was, apparently, to the entire -family. Nick had been out 
hunting the day before, and having set his heart upon a game 
supper to-night, the repast had been delayed until an hour be- 
yond the customary time, much to the wife’s dissatisfaction. 

“ But I am glad it happened so, now that you have come,” 
she said ; “ for Mr. Sloane was very successful, and he will 
enjoy his ducks twice as much if he has a brother sportsman 
to help eat them. They are almost ready. My daughter, Mr. 
Suydam will be more comfortable in the parlor until supper is 
on the table.” 

“ And I have something to sho-w you ! ” added Ruby, with 
the most engaging smile. “ Come ! ” 

The little old piano had disappeared. The new one, with tlie 
crimson cover Louis had not forgotten to send with it, stood 
between the easterly windows. 


ruby’s husband. 


55 


“ In order that I may see the cars pass while I am practising,’* 
explained she, archly. 

Kick had paid a flying visit to the city, and bought plain buff 
shades, with crimson cords and tassels, for the three hitherto 
bare casements. The new arm-chair, which was also crimson, 
was -wheeled in front of the stove. Ruby had robbed her cham- 
ber of writing-desk and book-bracket, and several other trifles, 
that gave the apartment to which they were transferred the 
expression of being frequently and gracefully inhabited. The 
transformation was marvellous. 

“It is easy to guess whose hands and taste have been at 
work here,” said Louis, looking about him with marked ap- 
proval, and emphasizing the compliment by a bow. 

“ Don’t praise me. You are the benevolent fairy ! ” cried 
Ruby, hastily. “ The room would be as comfortless as before 
without the piano and chair. But for your generous kindness 
in sending these, and the hope that we might, some day, see 
you here again, — that your gifts might appear to the best 
advantage, — we should not have cared to make the place 
presentable. Sit down,” — pushing the easy-chair towards him. 
“ Are you not very cold? ” 

“ I was,” rejoined Louis, recollecting that he still wore fll 
overcoat, and proceeding to remove it. “ The temperature 
here is delightful. I have taken the liberty of bringing you 
some work, to employ the time you were complaining of as 
hauging heavily upon your hands. Shall I undo the knot 
for you?” 

She had taken the package of books and music, giving him a 
glance of speechless gratitude as she received it, and was busy 
with the string of the wrapper. 

“ I can manage it, I think,” she returned. 

But the knot became tighter, instead of yielding to the per- 
suasive efforts of her pretty fingers ; and when she tugged at it 
more energetically, the ready blood mounting to her temples the 
while, in her haste and confusion, Louis laughed, and came to 
her assistance. 


56 


ruby’s husband. 


“ No, no ! ” she protested, playfully petulant, retaining her 
hold of the obstinate cord. “ Lwill not be baffled by a trifling 
little knot like this. I enjoy a battle with difficulties.’’ 

Again she pulled at it, until the twine left purple streaks upon 
her soft flesh. , , 

“ I cannot allow this. You will hurt yourself,” renionstrated 
Louis. ■ 

He meant to take hold of and draw the package from her 
^asp, but an abrupt movement on her part brought her hand 
directly under his, and he caught it instead. The touch and 
involuntary pressure brightened the hue of Ruby’s face, and 
fired his. The pliant fingers lay, without other motion than a 
faint flutter like the beating heart of a caged bird, in the clasp 
that did not instantly offer to release them. Their eyes met — 
his eager and glowing ; hers full of coy amazement, then sud- 
denly averted and concealed by the fringed lids. His regards 
followed hers to where the locked fingers lay still upon the 
paper parcel. He stooped before she could have prevented him, 
had she wished to do so, and kissed the palpitating palm of the 
hand he held prisoner, twice, thrice, — a strange, impetuous 

* jjess, which Ruby thought very odd and awkward. 

‘‘ Mr. Suydam ! ” she faltered, with an appearance of extreme 
embarrassment. 

“ Forgive me, I could not help it,” was all he said ; but his 
complexion was pale as it had been sanguine, a second before. 

He untied the knot, no longer resisted by her, uncovered 
books and music, and laid them out for her inspection. He 
expected nothing more than a constrained phrase of acknowl- 
edgment, — perhaps not even this. He deserved a haughty 
refusal to accept them. He had presumed upon her frank 
friendliness, offended her modesty, disappointed her hopes of 
tlie pleasant intercourse they were to hold in future. His aston- 
ishment almost outweighed his relief, as she said, in a voice that 
was yet agitated, but eloquent with grateful delight, — 

“ How shall I thank you for remembering and consulting my 
wishes? How can I ever repay you? ” 


ruby’s husband. 


57 


“ By forgiving my apparent impertinence just now ; by for- 
getting that I, even for an instant, seemed to fail in the respect- 
ful consideration due you,” was the humble rejoinder. “By 
believing that I shall never be surprised into a repetition of 
the offence. I meant no disrespect.” 

“ I know it. We will not speak of it again.” 

But neither forgot it. The recollection lent a more brilliant 
dye to Ruby’s cheek, a more thrilling intonation to her voice in 
speech and song, all the evening; sent Louis’s' blood leap- 
ing hotly through heart and vein whenever he recalled the 
warmth and throb of the pink palm his passionate lips had 
pressed. 

Mrs. Sloane’s supper was a* success, but Louis was obliged to 
plead a late and hearty tea as the excuse for his failure to enjoy 
it properly. Ruby ate little, and with palpable effort, and was 
very- silent while they sat at table. Nick had most of the talk 
to himself, and his theme being the hunt of the forenoon, and 
field sports in general, he was rather less tiresome than when he 
was allowed to discourse at length upon other subjects. Mrs. 
Sloane’s quick sight perceived her daughter’s preoccupation of 
thought ; marked Louis’s eye that sought Ruby’s countenance 
furtively and was then withdrawn, as in fear of offending her 
modesty ; and the mother took courage in the conviction that 
smooth seas and prospering gales were in reserve for her best- 
beloved one ; felt intuitively that Ruby had honored her tutelage 
by gaining some important advantage. 

When she cleared off the table, she put divers choice morsels 
of game into a covered dish, and set it upon the hearth to keep 
warm. 

“ She will be very hungry after her light supper and so much 
singing,” prophesied the doting parent, in painstaking solicitude, 
which would have been ridiculous had it not been pathetic, when 
one considered the thankless reception that ever attended upon 
her loving kindness. 

She said truly, “ so much singing.” Ruby’s ear was good, 
and her voice fine, but she read music with less facility than did 


58 


ruby’s husband. 


her lately-elected tutor. Several of the duets he had brought 
Avere familiar to her, and she acquitted herself well iu these. But 
he enjoyed yet more the task of drilling her in the new ones. If 
she faltered upon a difficult passage, or candidly confessed her 
inability to undertake it, he had only to sing or play it over 
once, or, at most, twice, and she caught it, repeating faithfully 
notes, time, and expression — a bewitching echo of himself. It 
was flattering incense to his vanity ; and although of the mascu- 
line gender, he was not totally insensible to such appeals. So 
with the few pages of French he persuaded her to read aloud. 
Her accent was defective, as he could not help admitting to 
himself, but she besought his patient criticism so earnestly, 
received his corrections with such sweet thankfulness, strove so 
diligently and successfully to copy every inflection of his render- 
ings, that he could not regret her need of instruction ; in fact, 
enjoyed the lesson the more because of her deficiencies. 

The evening went by swiftly. It was twelve o’clock when he 
found himself again upon the turnpike, the glittering stars over- 
head, darkness and silence all around, save for the glimmer- 
ing horizons and the echo of his horse’s hoofs upon the frozen 
ground. The fire in his room had gone out when he reached 
his lodgings, but he complained neither of chill nor solitude. 
There was a dreamy light in his eyes, and a faint, happy smile 
upon his mouth, as he turned up the gas, and divested himself 
of his mufllings. 

“ I behaved like an untamed barbarian, and she forgave me 
like an angel,” he said, audibly, after his head was on the 
pillow. “ He would be a fiend, and no man, who should harbor 
an unholy thought of purity like hers.” 

From which lover-like rhapsody he passed to the determina- 
tion to guard jealously the knowledge of the existence and 
habitation of his pearl from the hair-brained youths with whom 
he was obliged occasionally to consort. Her companionship 
would be the more delightful if he alone were the privileged 
visitant of the house. 

He was not backward in availing himself of his entree. 


ruby’s husband. 


69 


Three or four evenings in each week saw him the occupant of 
the parlor he had helped furnish. The singing and French lessons 
went bravely forward, and other presents — books, engravings, 
vases, statuettes, flower-stands, and the other nameless knick- 
knacks with which young girls love to decorate their boudoirs — 
had found their way, in rapid succession, to tlfe old white house. 
A bowl of gold-fish and several pots bf rare plants stood upon 
a table at the southern window, and above them hung a 
canary’s cage. There was a luxury in beholding the naive 
gratification Ruby evinced upon the reception of each one of 
these tokens of his regard ; the child-like readiness with which 
she accepted them. Other women would have hung back and 
made a stand upon the proprieties, consulting duennas and 
books of etiquette before deciding whether it were right for 
him to tender, or for her to take, the gifts it was now the 
pleasantest business of his day to seek and procure. But Ruby 
understood him. False pride and ^fleeted fastidiousness were 
things unknown in her simple code. She knew that he liked 
her and was happy in her society, and she liked him in return. 
Voila tout I What could be more natural and innocent than 
this recognized state of affairs? 

A deep snow fell on the 21st of December, and early in the 
afternoon of the following day. Ruby, stretched at full length 
upon the parlor sofa, a novel in one hand, and a paper of cream 
chocolate drops — given by Louis — in the other, was startled 
by the slower and nearer jingle of sleigh bells than had 
resounded all. day along the turnpike. Some one had turned 
into the barn-yard towards the side door. Darting to the 
window, she had a glimpse of Louis Suydam’s agile figure, 
throwing off the fur robes, and springing from the vehicle. 
Without staying for a second look, she dashed up stairs, calling 
upon her mother to follow and help her dress, and adding, in 
her flight through the kitchen, — 

“ And you, pa, keep him at the door a minute ! Talk horse 
to him ! ” 

Obedient Nick arrested the impatient young man in the porch. 


60 


ruby’s husband. 


“ My dear sir, you have forgot to blanket your animal ! ” 
Nick always spoke as if there were but one species. “ A 
nicish nag for a livery ! ’’ he continued, buckling the blanket 
across the horse’s chest. “ Well built for speed, too ! Sound ? ” 
catching up one leg after the other, with professional dexterity. 

“ Sound enough, I imagine, for a drive of an hour or two, 
which is all the use I have for him,” replied Louis, smiling. 
“ I have come to ask Miss Sloane to share it with me. Is she 
at home ? ” 

“ I b’lieve so. Poor child, ’tisn’t often she gets a ride now- 
adays ! If you are thinking of buying this ’ere animal, Mr. 
Suydam, I would advise you to insist upon a written warranty. 
I ain’t sure about this ’ere hind leg. Here’s something looks 
like spavin to my eye.” 

“ I am not thinking of buying him, or any other horse,” 
answered Louis, making a movement to enter the kitchen. 
“ Did you say the ladies were at home ? ” 

And Nick’s expedients being at an end, he suffered the chilled 
visitor to precede him into the neat kitchen. 

“Walk into the other room — won’t you?” he proposed, 
throwing open the parlor door. 

“No, thank you, I will wait here,” replied Louis, taking a 
rush-bottomed chair, and pulling off his fur gloves. “ The 
afternoons are so short, I will trouble you to let Miss Sloane 
know that I am here, and what my errand is. We must set 
off very soon, or our ride will be too brief.” 

“ A haughty, high-strung chap, in spite of his fine words and 
presents to the women,” reflected Nick, upon the stairs. “ It 
may be my turn, one of these days, to do the cool and uppish. 
Then look out, my hearty ! ” 

A hasty toilet is never conducive to the perfect preservation 
of one’s equanimity. The hearth of the green and white cham- 
ber was fireless, yet Ruby was in a profuse perspiration by the 
time her father put his head into the room. The ceremony of 
knocking at his daughter’s door was one that would not have 
commended itself to the farrier’s sense of propriety. 


ruby’s husband. 


61 


He wants you to go a-sleighing, and hurry up about getting 
your duds on ! ” he growled. 

Ruby had been lolling about all day in a loose wrapper, with 
her auburn trusses done up in crimping-pins. In the attempt to 
disengage the latter in a quarter of the time generally occupied 
by the process, she had literally dragged whole locks of hair out 
by the roots. While her mother got out clean stockings, skirts, 
and a dress, the beauty, very red in the face, and panting with 
haste, combed out and put up the main mass of her cheveleure 
into a knot at the back of her head, then brushed and poma- 
tumed the forelock into the rippling bands Louis admired almost 
as much as she did. In lowering her dress over her head, a 
hook caught in the elaborate construction. 

“ Stop ! ” she cried, sharply, to her mother. “ Isn’t that like 
your awkwardness ? You will ruin my hair ! Take it out 
without mussing my hmideaux — can’t you?” 

An impossibility, as was* seen, when she surveyed her dis- 
arranged puffs in the glass. 

“ That’s just the way, forever and ever ! Everything goes 
most crooked when I am in the greatest hurry. And I 
wouldn’t, for the world, have him suspect that I wasn’t already 
dressed. The great gump fancies that women sit up in their 
best clothes all day long, like wax dolls,” — vigorously hook- 
ing up the front of her dress, as she pronounced sentence 
upon her adorer’s common sense and knowledge of women’s 
ways. “ Here ! I’ll fix my hair over again, while you put on 
my stockings and gaiters.” 

She sat down before the toilet glass, tipping it to suit the 
different elevation of her head, and thrust out one foot in , its 
torn slipper and soiled hose. Mrs. Sloane was an expert 
Abigail. The second gaiter was fitted on as Ruby fastened 
her collar, and declared herself dressed. 

“ But as red as a cabbage rose ! ” surveying herself in the 
mirror. ‘‘Where’s the powder bag? That may cool me off 
a little.” 

At this instant her father delivered Louis’s message, in the 
style above narrated. 


62 


ruby’s husband. 


‘‘ Fm ready,’* she rejoined, slipping past him, and running 
down to the lower floor. 

“ How strange that I didn’t hear the sleigh-bells ! ” she said, 
after replying to Louis’s salutation, her countenance joyous as 
his. “I was deep in — what do you think? A French letter 
to my old language master. I promised to send him one every 
year, after I left school, and I am vain enough to fancy that I 
have improved so much lately in la belle langue as to be able to 
write it without disgracing myself or my new teacher. Don’t 
laugh at my presumption, or I shall throw the thing into the 
fire.” 

“ Laugh ! Indeed I am highly pleased and complimented. 
May I claim the teacher’s privilege of seeing and reading the 
important epistle?” 

“ O, I should never dare to let you see it ! Dear old Mr. 
Lux is not half so formidable a critic in my estimation.” 

The simple-hearted child ! Louis’s eyes spoke his estimation 
of her with sufficient plainness. The projected ride was hailed 
with enthusiasm. She flew off to don her hat and cloak, re- 
appearing equipped for the excursion in so short a time as to 
elicit a compliment upon her swiftness in accomplishing what 
was, with most ladies, a tedious operation. Louis was not sup- 
posed to know that the mother had waited in the upper cham- 
ber, the cloak on her arm and the hat in her hand, until the 
young lady appeared to order her to put them on for her, “ faster 
than she ever did before in her life.” Neither of the gay pair 
thought to look up, as they set off upon their jaunt, to the 
window at which stood the tiring-woman, shrinking behind the 
curtain, that her dark calico and collarless neck should not dis- 
grace her stylish daughter, while she could not deny herself the 
stolen delight of seeing how handsome and happy she looked in 
the pretty cutter, the wjiite wolf-skin heaped upon her lap, and 
a devoted cavalier beside her, whom no one could mistake for 
anything except a gentleman. 

Ruby was stylish this afternoon. Her gray cloth cloak, if 
not tine in texture, was of a good color and graceful in shape. 


kuby’s husband. 


63 


Mrs. Sloane had cut, fitted, aud made it herself, after a day 
spent in inspecting patterns and ready-made garments of a 
similar description displayed in the city stores, and receiving a 
variety of rebuffs from the gentlemanly vendors thereof, who 
were acute enough to surmise that her business was to examine, 
not purchase. The indomitable woman paid no attention to 
these polite intimations that the rich only were allowed to take 
such liberties with their stock. She bought a cheap cloth, be- 
cause she could afford to get no better, and made it up artisti- 
cally and fashionably. Ruby’s hat was gray felt, bound and 
trimmed with blue velvet, also by the mother’s hands, and tied 
under her blooming face with blue ribbons. A blue silk scarf 
about her neck was only a piece of the same ribbon fringed 
by the ingenious modiste^ and edged with a narrow velvet 
binding. 

You should have worn your furs,” observed Louis, seeing 
her shiver slightly, as the wind met them full in the face upon 
the open road, icy as an arctic nor’wester, from a sweep over 
hundreds of miles of frozen snow. 

“ I have none ! ” she answered briefly, adding, laughingly, 
after a pause, in fear, it would seem, lest she had been curt in 
the statement of a mortifying fact, — “ That remark, Mr. Suy- 
dam, shows conclusively your ignorance of the mysteries of 
ladies’ attire. Only rich people wear furs. I have never had 
so much as a muff or a tippet. My father cannot afford to 
dress me as he would if he possessed a competence. These are 
some of the petty trials of poverty, which persons in your cir- 
cumstances know nothing about. Still they are trials,” with a 
soft sigh. “ I should rise superior to them at all times, I sup- 
pose, but it is not always easy to do so.” 

“ Why, I thought you dressed like other young ladies,” said 
Louis, wonderingly. 

“ I am glad you did. My dear mother has the faculty of 
making everything she touches wear the best possible face to 
the general view. Still, I am afraid my wardrobe w^ould not 
pass muster with your fashionable acquaintances. They would 


64 


ruby’s husband. 


understand at once, for instance, that I tie a blue ribbon about 
my throat, not so much that it is becoming, but because I have 
no sable, or ermine, or mink, or even squirrel victorine to wear 
instead ; that I would not keep my hands under this beautiful 
robe so closely if I had a muff to protect them from the cold, 
and that my shoulders are less sloping this afternoon than they 
ought to be, by reason of my mother’s prudence in wrapping an 
old worsted shawl about them under my cloak. You see I 
know what feminine critics are.” 

“ And to prove how I defy them, — how fearless I am in the 
persuasion that you can bear off the palm from the richest be- 
ermined or be-minked, or be-victorined butterfly there, — I shall 
take you into the thickest of the Kriiwen carnival,” returned 
Louis, manfully, heading his horse directly for the city. “ Have 
you ever seen South Grand Street in the height of the sleighing 
season ? ” 

“ Once, — from the sidewalk, — when, as I sadly fear, I broke 
the tenth commandment outrageously,” she answered, her coun- 
tenance sparkling with the infantine glee Louis liked best to ex- 
cite. “ The thought that I should ever form a part of the caval- 
cade never entered my idlest dreams. Do you know,” — with a 
dangerous gaze into his eyes, — “I am more and more disposed 
to regard you as a magician? Do you carry your wonderful 
lamp in your bosom all the while ? It is always ready to do 
j^our friends a service, I observe.” 

“ I have carried a talisman there from the first day of our 
meeting. Ruby, which brings me joy and gladness continually.” 

lie had not meant to say so much. It was neither wise, nor 
altogether generous, considering that she was, in some sort, his 
guest ; but he did not wish it unsaid, as her lids drooped under 
his burning glance, and the carnation glowed into vividness of 
complexion, making her beauty a marvellous and glorious sight. 
Her fluctuating color was a miracle of skill and effect. Louis 
likened it mentally, now, to a burst of light falling upon a rare 
painting, bringing out only the finest strokes and choicest hues, 
but heightening these into splendor. 


ruby’s husband. 


C5 


They were in the streets of the city before he spoke again. 

“ Is there any errand to which you would like me to attend 
for you or your mother, before we go down town ? ” 

“ None — thank you.” 

“ There is a ladies^ restaurant. Wouldn’t you like a glass of 
wine, or a cup of coffee ? Can I do nothing to make you more 
comfortable ? ” 

Ruby’s glance was shyly grateful. 

“You are too good ; but I cannot invent a want, even to 
gratify your benevolent spirit.” 

“ Then, ho, for South Grand ! ” cried Louis, tightening the 
rein upon his spirited horse, who appeared to understand the 
command and approve of it. 

Louis had aptly termed -the scene into which they soon 
plunged, the “ Krawen carnival.” A procession of equipages, 
• — family sleighs, piled high with gayly-colored afghans and 
children in their holiday attire, drawn by pompous and prancing 
spans, and driven by liveried coachmen ; less pretentious two- 
seated vehicles, also crowded to their utmost capacity, with 
sometimes two, oftener one horse attached ; and, more numer- 
ous than both of these kinds put together, the light cutters, of 
every conceivable pattern and color, saucy, coquettish, rest- 
less — the yachts of the gorgeous land regatta, rich in robes of 
tiger, wolf, badger, bear, and buffalo skins, streaming over the 
backs and enveloping the riders ; — all these gliding in two dis- 
tinct streams, one flowing down, the other up the street, to the 
inspiriting chimes of a thousand bells, made up a pageant 
that bewildered to enchantment the throng of spectators lining 
the sidewalks, intoxicated the participants in the popular amuse- 
ment with the combined excitants of rapid motion, merry 
music, and convivial society. The wealth and beauty of the 
town had turned out, en masse, to do honor to the first day’s 
sleighing of a winter that promised, by its early severity, many 
more as line. Good humor and jollity were the ruling spirits of 
the hour and place. Whether it were a couple of fairy-like 
cutters, each impelled by a high-stepping, fiery-eyed trotter, 
5 


C6 


ruby’s husband. 


urged to the top of his speed by the tense rein and excited shout 
of his master, that glanced by our young people with the celerity 
of winged creatures clearing the air ; or a capacious six-seated 
affair, swimming leisurely along, the occupants commenting 
upon the attractive features of the spectacle, or exchanging 
salutations with their neighbors to the right and left ; or a staid 
Darby and Joan, jogging easily up and down, satisfied with their 
unfashionable roomy sleigh and sober roadster, — all looked 
bright, happy, and interested in what was passing around them. 
It was a golden opportunity for flirtation, gossip, friendly trials 
of speed, and the too-much-neglected forgetfulness of care in 
innocent diversion, such as sent the youthful home with glow- 
ing faces and riotous pulses, and shook the cobwebs from tlie 
brains, and the dust from the social sympathies of their elders. 

lluby had not completed the grand tour once, before she be- 
came aware that she was the object of notice from those who 
bowed familiarly or formally to her escort. The ladies eyed 
her curiously, the gentlemen more covertly and approvingly. 
Twice a jaunty “jumper ” drew up so near to them as to graze 
the runners, and kept pace with them for some minutes, ostensibly 
that the proprietor of the dashing turnout might — as she would 
have phrased it to her father — “ talk horse ” with Louis. He 
was a young man of, perhaps, seven-and-twenty, with bold, 
black eyes and a jetty beard of surprising length and silkiness. 
Ilis costume was foppish, his conversation flippant, his s'leigh 
and appurtenances new and expensive, and he drove a blooded 
mare, in style as showy, and bearing as conceited, as was her 
owner. 

Louis answered the praises lavished upon the animal attached 
to his sleigh with the laconic announcement that he was a hired 
hack, ’with fair speed and tolerable good looks, nothing more. 

“ I wonder you don’t keep one of your own, Suydam,” said 
the stranger, lounging easily upon his seat, and deliberately 
studying the contour and tints of the fair young face not three 
feet from his. 

“ I have not time to exercise a horse, if I could afford tho 


ruby’s husband. 


67 


useless indulgence,” replied Louis, touching the one he was 
driving with the whip, and shooting ahead of the cutter in front 
of him, thus ridding himself of a convoy he evidently did 
not desire. 

The second time he joined them he proved more tenacious. 
Short replies had no damaging effect upon his social disposition. 
Botli horses were walking lazily in the rear of several large 
sleighs, where there was not room to pass. 

“ There is an uncommonly brilliant array of beauties here, 
to-day,” the stranger remarked, with a sidelong glance at his 
pretty neighbor, while he professed to accost her attendant. 
“ Krawen is not so noted for handsome ladies as for fast horses, 
— perhaps because horses can be had for money, and beauty 
cannot. I would suggest importation as the surest means of 
supplying the deficiency of our city in this important respect. 
The show this afternoon is really creditable, although the belles 
are, most of them, new and strange faces.” 

Louis fiicked his horse slightly with the lash, and attempted 
his former manoeuvre, but the ponderous and dignified establish- 
ments aforesaid filled up the track left for the down-town stream 
so nearly that he ran the risk of an upset upon the curbstone 
if he persisted in the effort. In impatient disgust, he fell back 
into his old position. 

“ Take it coolly ! ” advised his tormentor, smiling at his dis- 
comfiture. ‘‘Large bodies move slowly, you know. There 
ought to be a law, requiring portable nurseries, like those 
respectable old arks ahead, to keep off the trotting ground. 
Just in proportion as one grows dignified and respectable, he 
becomes more or less of a bore,”’, taking off his hat with a 
flourish to a sleighful of ladies, who acknowledged the salute 
with a smile and a stare — the one intended for him, the other 
Tor the beautiful woman with whom he appeared to be con- 
versing. 

Louis bit his lip in chagrin as he noticed this. Had he acted 
prudently or kindly in bringing to this public place one whose^ 
personal attractions were so marked, yet concerning whose 


C8 


ruby’s husband. 


name and abode he was unwilling to give any information ? He 
would be plied with innumerable questions for the next six 
months relative to his charge, and he was determined to keep 
his wild flower in the shade yet a while longer. An idea 
struck him, as the portable nurseries swept around, still dig- 
nifiedly, to the other side of the way, and fell into the current 
setting up town. 

“ What do you say to a trot?’’ he proposed, carelessly. 

“ Agreed, with all my heart ! ” 

The dandy sat erect instantly, taking a short hold of his 
reins with both hands w'ell apart, and squaring elbows and 
knees, after the fashion of sporting drivers. Louis’s horse, put 
fairly on his mettle, held his own gallantly for half a dozen 
blocks, then flagged and fell behind. His rival was eight or 
ten yards in advance, when Louis wheeled suddenly out of the 
course, up a side street, and in another minute had left the 
lively scene far behind him. 

“ Well done ! ” smiled Ruby. “ What a very impertinent and 
disagreeable man that was ! Does he call himself a gentle- 
man? ” 

“ I believe so. And what is more strange, other people 
bestow the title upon him also, because he is rich and fashion- 
able, I suppose. I regret that he compelled me to withdraw 
you from the gay scene without consulting your wishes, but I 
saw no other means of getting rid of him peaceably. However, 
it is growing late and cold. We could not have remained 
much longer at any rate. iLwill be dark before we reach 
home.” 

“ I dare say he has just looked over his shoulder to see if we 
are gaining upon him,” said Ruby, her merry laughter chim- 
ing in lightly with the silver bells. “ It was a capital ruse de 
guerre I ” 

To herself she was saying, “ The jealous puppy ! he is 
afraid to have another man look at me ! Does he think 
they are all born without eyes and taste, excepting his royal 
highness ? ” 


euby’s husband. 


69 


CHAPTER V. 

“ Nothing but mink ! and a victorine, instead of a cape ! ” 
Tears sprang to Ruby’s eyes, as she tossed the long-coveted 
furs back into the boxes in which they had come. “ I expected 
a sable cloak, or a half-cape at least ! If I undertook to make 
a Christmas present, it should be something worth having ! ” 

Mrs. Sloane regarded her in amazement. 

“ My precious child ! Few ladies in this country have 
sable cloaks unless their husbands are millionnaires. You would 
have been overjoyed to receive these two months ago — would 
have been satisfied with squirrel or fitch.” 

“ Circumstances alter cases,” responded Ruby, contemptu- 
ously. ‘‘ When a man is in love, he ought to pay for the 
luxury. I don’t like this talk about not affording this or that. 
I am afraid my gentleman is disposed to be stingy.” 

“ I have seen no sign of it,” said Mrs. Sloane, smiling at the 
absurd idea. “ These furs are costly ; they are fine and dark, 
nearly as valuable as sable. I know more about such things, 
because, recollecting how much you wished for a set, I went to 
a dozen stores in Krawen, about six weeks ago, hoping to 
find something you would not be asliamed to wear, yet which 
would not be beyond my means. The cheapest and commonest 
mink I saw was fifty dollars.” 

Ruby picked up the despised present, and stroked it thought- 
fully. 

“ I saw some magnificent mink and sable cloaks the day be- 
fore yesterday, when we were driving, — and many young girls 
'wore ermine. I mean to have a set of ermine next winter, if 
all goes well.” 


70 


ruby’s husband. 


“All does go well thus far — does it not? ” queried the mother, 
musingly, for there were times when the imperious daughter 
would not brook questioning. 

“ Yes. He is as spooney as possible,” laughing at the recol- 
lection of the more tender passages of her intercourse with the 
doomed swain. “ But, dear me, such a girl of a fellow ! He 
has no more pluck than a chicken. I thought he would have 
fainted, one day, when he forgot himself so far as to kiss my” 
hand. I really believe he would have run away, and never 
showed his face here again, if I had not been particularly 
gracious to him afterwards. (^If there is one trait I admire more 
tlian everything else besides, in a man, it is dash, assurance, 
and a smart spice of wickedness^ 

“ Don’t say that, dear,” the mother entreated, earnestly. 
“ I talked and felt so once. It is not often that I advise you 
about anything, but I have seen a great deal of life, and young 
people are apt to make fatal mistakes if they are not put on 
their guard. (jChoose a husband for his domestie virtues, — for 
his good temper and sound sense, and his ability to take excel- 
lent care of a wi^ You will need care and petting, darling. 
I did, at your age. I had rather bury you this hour than have 
you marry unhappily — ” 

“ As you have done, you were about to say,” finished Ruby, 
impertinently, seeing her mother check herself in the middle of 
the sentence. “ Not very complimentary to my revered pa- 
ternal, it must be confessed. Never mind, my fearful mamma. 
I know how to take care of myself I ” 

Her mother admitted as much to herself, when she watched 
her reception of Louis on Christmas morning. He w^as to dine 
with them, and came out early in the forenoon for the better 
enjoyment of his holiday. 

I our boxes had been left at the Sloanes’ door, by an express 
wagon, the preceding evening. Ruby’s two held the victorine 
and muff’ she had hinted for at their last interview. That 
marked with Mrs. Sloane’s name contained a dress pattern of 
black silk ; Nick’s, a game-bag, powder-flask, and shot-pouch. 


ruby’s husband. 


71 


The munificent donor of the otherwise well-chosen gifts -was 
not sufficiently versed in the laws controlling these matters to 
know that articles of wearing apparel are rarely presented to 
ladies by gentlemen, unless they are members of the same 
family, or closely connected by ties of kindred or affinity. Mrs. 
Sloane had once been au fait to these rules, but years of need 
and economical contrivance had cured her of overstrained 
scruples upon this as upon many other subjects. She was pro- 
foundly grateful to the warm-hearted youth she was already 
learning to love ; touched, almost to tears, by his generous 
remembrance of her in her shabbiness and poverty, and the less 
disposed, by virtue of this unwonted emotion, to sympathize 
with Ruby’s unreasonable disappointment at her present. 

“ You had ought to have wore your new silk to-day, old 
lady ! ” said Nick, in boisterous good-nature, calling upon her 
to taste the bowl of egg-nog he had brewed in honor of 
the day. 

She had everything in readiness for the Christmas dinner. 
Again a noble turkey browned fragrantly upon the spit before 
the fiery grate, and the top of the stove was covered with sauce- 
pans. The table was laid with her one damask cloth, the care- 
fully-preserved relic of her wedding store. It* had been darned 
in several places, but so neatly as not to be visible to most eyes ; 
it was snowy in purity, and glossy from the smoothing-iron ; and 
although dishes and plates were common white granite, the 
goblets pressed glass, and the only silver upon the table con- 
sisted of one antique caster and six table-spoons, Mrs. Sloane 
had no cause to be ashamed of the appointments of her feast. 
She wore a brown delaine, a plain collar, and_upon her head a 
little cap she had sat up late on Christmas eve to fashion after 
a model she remembered to have seen in a milliner’s window 
when she was shopping for Ruby’s winter gear. In this 
Quakerish garb she looked more like a true lady than did her 
daughter, beautiful as she undoubtedly was. Hitherto, Ruby 
had intrusted the task of her own adornment to her mother’s 
taste and ingenuity ; but in the flush of her new hopes and 


72 


ruby’s husband. 


expectations she was disposed to bloom out more liishly into 
fanciful toilets and ornaments. Her penchant, like her father’s, 
was for the florid and startling. She had but one silk, and that 
a summer one, — a ehene figure — blue upon a white ground ; 
and this she persisted in wearing to-day, despite her mother’s 
gentle expostulations. The waist was too much defaced to be 
presentable, and she supplied its place by a muslin spencer, — 
adding, by way of keeping warm in the exposed, draughty 
house, a scarlet cloth sack, embroidered with white, which 
she especially liked. No apparel, however singular, could alter 
the fact of her more than passable looks, but the scarlet ac- 
corded ill with her bright complexion and auburn hair ; gave 
her the odd effect of being overblown — a rose in which the 
petals were set too thickly, and spread too widely ; an arrogant 
beauty, that commanded, not invited, admiration. In the same 
style were her redundant bandeaux, and the bunch of curls that, 
bursting from the coil set low upon the back of her neck, 
flowed over one shoulder. 

She entered the kitchen just in time to hear her father’s 
remark to his wife. 

“You have no idea of making that silk up for yourself — have 
you?” she interrogated. “ When will you ever wear it? ” 

“When she visits her daughter — Mrs. Lewis Suydam ! ” 
retorted her father, broadly. “ By jingo ! but you are gotten 
up regardless, to-day ! Quite stunning, I declare ! ” 

“ Hold your tongue,” w^as the dutiful reply. “ Mrs. Suydam, 
— and, by the way, the name isn’t Lewis, but Louis^ I wish 
you to recollect, — Mrs. Suydam would rather have the use of 
the black silk now^, than the pleasure of seeing it iipon^ some- 
body else in the dim future. It is just what I want this winter. 
You can alter it for yourself, when I have done with it. I am 
so much taller than you that you can make it over nicely.” 

“ But what will Mr. Suydam say?” demurred the submissive 
parent. 

“ Bah ! Do you suppose he will ever suspect it to be the 
one he sent you when he sees it on me, or notice whelher 


ruby’s husband. 


73 


you wear calico or satin ? There he is ! ” as a sleigh passed 
the window. 

She snatched the furs from the table where she had laid them 
in readiness, fastened the victorine about her throat, thrust lier 
hands into her mutf, and danced out upon the porch to greet 
the- guest. 

“ A merry Christmas ! ” she called out, gayly. “ You behold 
before you the happiest and most fortunate of Santa Claus’s 
votaries — the maddest, merriest, richest girl in the land on, 
this blessed Christmas morning ! ” 

Madly merry, riotously happy she seemed — a lovely bac- 
chanal in her fantastic dress ; her cheeks crimson, her lips 
parted over her dazzling teeth in the most joyous of childlike 
smiles, her hair banding her forehead like an aureola. Louis’s 
senses reeled at sight of the apparition. She glorified the old 
porch, with its low eaves and broken floor ; made of the mean 
house a bower of beauty ; of the world, a home of delight ; of 
life, one blissful, endless holiday. He lingered a minute upon 
the steps to tell her this. 

“ It is a raw day,” Nick had said, leading the horse away to 
the stable. “ We are going to have more snow before night.” 

“ I thought the same five minutes since,” murmured Louis, 
pressing in his the soft hands she offered, in unsophisticated 
welcome. “ I find the weather and the world all glow and 
warmth now.” 

“ That is the reward of making others happy,” returned 
Ruby, demurely casting down her eyes. “ It is more blessed to 
give than to receive. If that is true,” — her countenance one 
beam of light, again raised to his, — “ what a gloriously happy 
man you ought to be to-day ! You have sent sunshine into a 
very shady place.” 

“ I shall run away if you say another word,” threatened he, 
playfully. “ It is enough for me to know that you are content 
with my poor offering. There comes the snow ! ” 

A few large flakes fell upon her hair and upturned face. 

“ Come in,” he urged ; “ you will take cold.” 


74 


\ 

ruby’s husband. 


\ 


“ Take cold ! Do not insult my furs by such insinuations,” 
was her reply. 

Nevertheless, she went with him into the house, prettily and 
sweetly obedient. 

The snow changed to sleet by the time dinner was despatched. 

“ We shall lose our ride,” regretted Louis, watching the 
patter of the frozen drops against the window. “ I had looked 
forward to it with great pleasure.” 

“ And I ! ” answered the amiable siren. “ But we can be 
tolerably well satisfied within doors — can’t we ? ” 

“ Tolerably ! There is no other spot upon earth so dear to 
me as this cosy parlor ! ” 

Nick Sloane slept off the effects of his repeated potations of 
egg-nog upon the settle in the kitchen. Ilis wife removed the 
traces of the bountiful meal with her accustomed despatch and 
neatness, and leaving untouched the mending-basket, because it 
was Christmas-day, sat dowm by the eastward window, folded 
the toil-worn hands upon her lap, and gazed with sad, patient 
eyes towards the sea, at the clouds heavy with the increasing 
tempest, and the w^eary waste of meadow-land. 

Life had gone hardly with her, poor soul ! She was lame 
and sore with digging, sowing, and weeding, and heartsick at 
reaping briers and thorns. Up to this time ! Tender blades of 
promise were beginning to show themselves in her dreams of 
the future. Let her but live to see her darling the wife of a 
kindly-tempered, honorable gentleman, wdio could and w’ould 
maintain her in ease and plenty, and her labor of years would 
be accomplished. All her prospects had this as their boundary, 
lluby married. Ruby rich. Ruby happy — and it mattered little 
whether she herself slipped unnoticed out of the world, or sup- 
ported for a few years more the burden of existence. As for 
the tipsy Hercules, snoring upon the settle behind her, she gave 
him neither thought nor look. She accepted and endured him 
as the philosophical hunchback does the deformity he know's 
cannot be removed, nor rendered less conspicuous. 

“ O, it is pitiful ! ” cries the master of modern satirists, in 


ruby’s husband. 


75 


one of the rare bursts of feeling that reveal to us the aching 
heart under the Momus mask. “ It is pitiful — the bootless 
love of mothers for their children in Vanity Fair ! ” 

Mrs. Sloane had been fond of reading in her younger days ; 
but before Thackeray came into fashion, she had lost her relish 
for fictitious biography in the hand-to-hand fight -^ith the 
troubles that vv^ear most sufely into the sensitive and imagi- 
native nature — the commonplace trials of straitened means 
and uncongenial associations. Had she been never so close a 
student of this Macchiavelli of novelists, she would not, in the 
singleness of her idolatry, have discerned any applicability in 
the above pathetic exclamation to her estate, as she watched, 
alone and forgotten, the Christmas storm bring premature 
twilight, then depths of darkness, before she stirred from her 
reverie, — the hum of cheerful talk,^the ring of happy laughter, 
and the strains of merry music from the adjacent apartment, 
making more profound the stillness, sadder the solitude of the 
homely kitchen, where Nick’s stertorous breathing and the 
ticking of the clock were all the interruptions to dead silence. 

Groping her way to the mantel, as the shrill bell of the time- 
piece rang out six o’clock, she struck a match, lighted a lamp, 
and put on the kettle for tea. Big Nick, on being shaken 
vigorously and persistently, and told that supper was ready, 
grunted a dozen round oaths to strengthen his assertion that he 
had a headache, and ‘‘ wasn’t going to budge, to please her or 
anybody else, until he got ready,” and relapsed into stupor. 
The sensible wife refrained from further useless efforts to 
arouse him. She had set the table with great care ; but, with- 
out a frown or sigh, she removed from it the choicest delicacies, 
and arranged them upon a large waiter. This she carried into 
the parlor, and set upon one of the card-tables. 

“ Neither papa nor I care for supper to-night, my dear,” she 
explained to Ruby ; “ and I thought you and Mr. Suydam 
would not mind having yours in here, as I have some 'work to 
attend to in the other room.” 

“ It is a charming arrangement,” said Louis. 


76 


ruby’s husband. 


“ It takes me back to the days of my childhood and doll’s 
tea-parties,” said Ruby, gleefully, taking the chair Louis had 
placed for her, on one side of the board, as he helped him- 
self to one opposite. “ You like sugar and cream — do you 
not ? ” proceeding to pour out his tea, with a grace and sweet- 
ness that would have made the bitterest decoction nectar to his 
palate. » 

They toyed for a long time over their repast. Mrs. Sloane had 
drunk her solitary cup of tea, laid the table anew for morning, 
and mixed the sponge for her breakfast rolls, before the stroke 
of the bell, which was the preconcerted signal between Ruby aud 
herself, notified her that she might go in for the waiter. Ruby, 
in radiant good-humor, supplied the vacant place by the back- 
gammon-board, and the rattle of the dice and click of the shift- 
ing pieces kept time for the rest of the evening with the ticking 
clock and snoring husband, as Mrs. Sloane, still conscientiously 
omitting her accustomed evening tasks, from the habit or supersti- 
tion of her earlier years, mused before the kitchen stove, without 
other light than the dull glare from the grate. For family 
expenses were heavy nowadays ; candles and kerosene too 
dear to be wasted upon such unprofitable purposes as making 
her vigil less gloomy. She could rest and think as well in the 
dark as if the room were ablaze with yule tapers. 

She took advantage of a duet, which was allegro and forte^ 
to awaken Nick, and insist upon his going to bed. Steadied 
and supported by her, he stumbled across the kitchen floor, and 
up the stairs to his bedroom, where she assisted him to undress. 
In one minute after his head touched the pillow he was asleep 
again. She kindled fires in her daughter’s chamber and in that 
intended for Louis, who had yielded to her hospitable objections 
to his braving the fury of the tempest that night, and agreed to 
remain in his present quarters until it subsided. Then she 
went back to her chair by the stove, and sat out the midnight. 
It was half past twelve >vhen she tapped at Ruby’s door. The 
charming damsel had just assumed her night wrapper, and was 
busy plaiting her forelock into numberless little tails, destined 


ruby’s husband. 


77 


to leap from their confinement on the morrow in sunbriglit 
rivulets. 

“ Law, ma ! what are you spooking about for, at this time of 
night? ” she inquired, not very distinctly, inasmuch as she held 
one strand of a braidlet in her mouth,. while she manipulated 
the Other two. 

The idea of confessing the truth — to wit, that she was 
lonely, and pined for a caress, an affectionate look, a single 
word of appreciation of her endeavors to make her child happy 
— did not present itself to the mother’s mind. Ruby was too 
matter-of-fact, as the parent put it, — too heartless would have 
been nearer the mark, — to tolerate such non-remunerative effu- 
sions. In witnessing her gushing style of deportment in Louis 
Suydam’s presence, one might have thought that nothing short 
of a forty-horse power pressure could restrain the exuberance 
of hor emotions within the bounds of decorous expediency. 
But , ere the members of her family proper were concerned, — 
to quote her favorite excuse for inconsistencies of all descrip- 
tions, — circumstances altered cases. 

“ I looked in to see if you were comfortable,” rejoined Mrs. 
Sloane, taking up the tongs to arrange the wood fire. “ Wouldn’t 
you like to have something to eat before you go to bed ? ” 

“ I guess not,” said Ruby, dubiously. “ I had a late supper, 
you know. And Louis brought me a boxful of Taillard’s 
cream chocolates, and we have been nibbling them all the 
evening.” 

“ You have had a happy day — haven’t you? ” continued the 
mother. 

Plum ! so-so ! Rather humdrum, but better than if we had 
been here alone. The fact is, it tires me prodigiously to talk 
to that youth. He has formed such a ridiculously exalted 
opinion of my attainments, mental and spiritual, that I get 
wearied to death playing the angel. I feel like rushing to the 
other qxtreme so soon as he is out of sight. I acknowdedge 
freely that there is more of the devil than the angelic in my 
composition.” 


78 


ruby’s husband. 


She said this complacently, knotting the end of the braidlet, 
and surveying her image in the mirror, while she separated 
another tress from its companions, and commenced operations 
upon it. Like some other people we have met, with ten times 
her brains and moral principle, she thought a touch of deviltry 
a fine thing to boast of. 

Mrs. Sloane made no reply, but there was anxiety in the 
eyes that seemed to study the blazing sticks upon the hearth. 

“Pa was drunk to-night — W'asn’t he?” inquired Ruby, in 
her turn. 

“Yes.” 

“ I supposed so, when you proposed that we should have sup- 
per in the parlor. I do wish he would have some regard for 
appearances. He would frighten many men away from the 
house. I can see already that Louis despises him. He talks 
so loud, and uses such horrible grammar ! ” 

“You cannot alter him from W'hat he is, my child.” 

The reply was uttered composedly, with no dejection in the 
accent. The season of complaint had passed with that of 
effort. 

“ I suppose you are right,” answered Ruby, pettishly, her 
fingers very busy with the golden-red hair. “ After all, it will 
make very little difference to me when I am once away from 
here. Then I shall advise Louis to buy or rent a small farm 
back in the country for you and pa. It will be very nice and 
cosy for you, and decidedly more convenient for me than to 
leave him here, where he can run into Kraw^en every day, 
and mortify me with his rough ways.” 

Another pause, and she removed another finished braid from 
between her cherry lips. 

“By the way, ma, we — Louis and I — are going to the 
opera on Monday night, and I want that black silk done in time 
for me to w^ear. As good luck would have it, Julia Miller gave 
me a love of a white opera hood, as a farewell keepsake, and I 
shall wear my scarlet sack under my shawl, which, of course, 
1 shall take off. So I am all fixed, you see. The white gloves 


ruby’s husband. 


79 


I wore on examination day can be cleaned so as to look respect- 
able by gaslight.” 

“ I am afraid I cannot finish the dress by Monday,” objected 
the mother, deprecatingly^ “ This is Thursday night, and there 
is Saturday’s baking and Sunday — ” 

“ You can do it easily,” affirmed Ruby, who detested sewing 
herself. “ There is a good full pattern — enough for flounces ; 
and you must hunt up some bits of the precious black lace you 
are so miserly with, for trimming the waist. It is only getting 
up a little earlier in the morning, and sitting up later for two 
nights, and the thing is done. There is no use talking about it. 
I promised Louis to go, and I am just crazy to see the opera ; 
but I shan’t go one step unless I can be decent.” 

A fuller pout of the red lips, and a suspicion of a sob in the 
voice, settled the matter. 

A hard frost followed the rain, congealing the half-melted 
snow into a cake of solid ice. Upon this there fell, on Sunday, 
another fleecy covering, four or five inches deep, and the lovers 
of sleighing were jubilant. At five o’clock, Monday afternoon, 
Louis made his appearance at the Sloanes’ door. Ruby, mag- 
nificent in the new dress and scarlet sack, was ready to 
receive him. Mrs. Sloane was busy getting ready a cup of 
strong coffee, to fortify them for the night ride. Louis’s atten- 
tion wandered far enough from Ruby’s face to observe hers, as 
she passed his cup to him. 

“ Are you not well, my dear madam ? ” he asked. “ You are 
pale to-night.” 

She was, with black circles around eyes that were swollen 
and inflamed. 

“ I have a slight headache,” she answered, evasively. 

“ Ma ! ” exclaimed Ruby, in gentle reproach, “ why did you 
not tell me that before ? I will not leave you, if you are feel- 
ing badly.” 

“ It is a trifle. A night’s rest will make all right again.” 

“ Are you sure ? ” persisted the daughter. 

“ I am ! ” 


80 


ruby’s husband. 


Mrs. Sloane spoke shortly, turning away to the side-table. 
The perverted instinct of truth and fair-dealing may have 
revolted at the finished hypocrisy of the selfish child, to humor 
whom she had cruelly overworked eyes, head, and spine for 
tliree days. If so, the maternal conquered it, for, half an hour 
later, she wrapped Ruby up in shawls and furs, and went out 
with her to the sleigh, to be sure that she was properly protected 
from the nipping air. 

“ There is a hot-water case in the bottom of the cutter for 
her feet,” said Louis, reassuringly ; “I promise to bring her 
back safely by twelve.” 

“ But don’t sit up for us, mamma, dear,” Ruby begged. 
“ lYe have a pass key. Good night ! ” 

She kissed her hand to the pair left standing upon the porch, 
and was whirled around the corner into the broad road. 

There was not another woman in the parquette that evening, 
and not ten in the opera-house, who could compare advantageous- 
ly, in point of physical beauty, with Louis’s charge. The trans- 
parent fairness of her skin, her brilliant color, the singular tint 
of her hair, and her self-possessed bearing, would have marked 
licr out for notice anywhere had her features been less regular. 
As it was, she was a cynosure in her immediate neighborhood, 
and lorgnettes, held by dandy connoisseurs and lady critics, were 
levelled at her from all parts of the building. She was hand- 
some and new, and therefore -worth staring at, decided the 
former. She was tolerably pretty, but too 'prononcee — evident- 
ly “ notone of our set,” objected the latter. Her manner, dress, 
general appearance, all showed her to be rather underbred. 
She lacked tone. 

Happily ignorant of these disparaging qualifications of the 
praise awarded the lady of his love, Louis relished heartily the 
flattering notice she received ; accepted it as an augury of the 
world’s approval of his choice. He thought of their future as 
one now. Months, may be years, might elapse before he should 
be able to claim her ; but they were young, and they could 
wait for the fame and fortune he was to make for their joint 


ruby’s husband. 


81 


enjoyment. Reversing the rule governing the optics of the vic- 
tims of other kinds of intoxication, which makes staircases and 
precipitous heights of the level ground, this delicious bewilder- 
ment graded the Hill Difficulty into a safe and easy highway. He 
was happy to-night, and, after the invariable wont of enamoured 
fledglings, he made this patent to everybody who looked at 
him. Exhibitions of the tender passion are highly entertaining 
to casual spectators, but in this instance the person most diverted 
by the display was, beyond all question, the object of his regard. 
Her own heart, being as cool as the inner compartment of a 
polar refrigerator, did not mar her amusement by untimely pal- 
pitations and yearnings. Strange to relate, she, of all who be- 
held him, was probably the only one who considered his behavior 
ridiculous. Even at this unripe age, and under the influence of 
the most potent enchantment that can blind the reason of men, 
of whatever age, Louis Suydam maintained much of the calm 
dignity that dissuaded the lawless scapegraces of his sex and 
acquaintance from familiarity, and won for him, from tl>e few 
women he was in the habit of meeting and recognizing in his 
own sphere of life, the reputation of excessive reserve. Ruby 
congratulated herself upon the easy conquest she had made of 
pride and unapproachableness. Had she known him better, or 
even seen him in his intercourse with the world outside her 
home, her vain, pleasure-loving nature might have been moved 
to the better understanding of the obstacles overcome by the 
love she had inspired, as of the value of the prize she had won. 
She coqueted with him, on this occasion, as she would have 
done with any rattle-brained coxcomb. The gaze that took in 
her exceeding loveliness, as the Parsee would the tempered rays 
of his sun-god, — with trembling that w'ould not let him quite 
credit the fact of his blessedness, — she met with coy perversity, 
alternately eluding his eye, and. sending from hers looks of 
inquiry, tenderness, doubt — clever counterfeits of earnestness 
that puzzled and fired him. 

“ Very coarse acting,” said a veteran flirt near them. 

6 


82 


ruby’s husband. 


Perhaps so, but Louis was past the stage of critical discern- 
ment of such nice points. 

All went on blissfully until the entr’acte* Then a gentleman 
stepped down the steep aisle, to where Louis sat, on the outside 
of the tier of benches, and halted beside him. 

“ Ah ! good evening, Suydam ! This is the first time I have 
seen you here this winter. What do you think of the music?’* 

It was the black-eyed, black-bearded stranger who had stared 
at Ruby with such unequivocal meaning, and annoyed Louis 
beyond the limits of gentlemanly patience, on their first sleigh- 
ride. 

“ Did you drive over to-night? ” he inquired, when his initial 
question had been answered. 

“ I did.” 

“ So did I. The sleighing on the plank road is uncommonly 
fine.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Louis, dryly. 

“ Didn’t you think so? ” 

‘‘ I am not so good a judge as yourself,” returned the other, 
yet more discouragingly. 

“ The moon will be up by the time we go home,” resumed the 
intruder, undaunted. “ Suppose we finish the trot we com- 
menced last week ? ” 

“ I decline entering my horse against yours,” replied Louis. 

“0, but I did not bring Magpie out to-night. I am positive 
you could make a fair show of speed alongside of the animal I 
drove over.” 

“ I have no fancy for racing after dark.” 

Louis changed his position slightly, almost facing Ruby, and, 
of course, giving his interlocutor the cold shoulder. The latter 
retained his stand, pulling his mustache in meditative self- 
conceit, and scrutinizing bench after bench of the gay assem- 
blage. If he were waiting for an opportunity to renew his over- 
tures to the couple nearest him, fortune favored him. Louis’s 
opera-glass lay forgotten upon his knee, and a chance move- 
ment of his threw it to the floor with such force as to crack the 


ruby’s husband. 


83 


frame, break the screw used for adjusting the lenses, and dis- 
lodge one of these latter. This misfortune was announced, with 
a show of profound sympathy, by the stranger, who had stooped 
for, and secured the luckless instrument, before the owner could 
reach it. 

“ Fortunately I can offer a temporary remedy for the mis- 
chief done,’’ he said, producing an elegant lorgnette, inlaid 
with mother-of-pearl and gold. “ There are few more power- 
ful glasses made than mine, and since I have an engagement 
which will prevent me from seeing the latter part of the opera, 
you will really oblige me by accepting and using this. It will 
only be in my way.” 

He addressed Louis, as he forced the glass into his reluctant 
hand, but his eye, smile, and bow were for Ruby. She felt that 
she could do nothing less than acknowledge his courtesy by a 
slight inclination of the head, and to this she joined, from her 
vantase-ground behind Louis, who leaned forward in earnest 
protest against the friendly offer, a glance at once complaisant 
and grateful. 

- “Not a syllable, my dear fellow. Take it back ! By no 
means ! ” said the successful manoeuvrer, refusing to touch the 
lorgnette proffered by Suydam. “ I don’t want it, I tell 
you ! It would be a regular nuisance if I were to take it 
with me. You can leave it at my office, some day, when you 
are passing. Good night ! A pleasant evening, and a safe 
ride home ! ” 

Comprehending, in dumb but expressive show. Ruby with 
her cavalier, in his suave adieux, he bowed himself off. 

Louis laid the opera-glass upon Ruby’s lap with compressed 
lips and lowering brow. 

“ Why shouldn’t we use it?” she asked lightly. “ lie will 
be none the wiser for our dignified resentment. We should 
only deprive ourselves of pleasure without punishing him. 
Who is this hete noir of yours? He has a name, I suppose? ” 

“His name is Bogart Veddar. He pretends to practise law, 


84 


ruby’s husband. 


but being rich enough to live independently of his profession, he 
spends most of his time in — ” 

lie stopped, withheld by honor from the utterance of a truth 
that might seem to savor of malicious scandal, and subjoined, 
“ other pursuits.” 

u Why do you dislike him ? ” 

“ Who told you that I do not like him? ” 

Ruby laughed softly — a murmur full of mirth and mis- 
chief. 

‘‘ Yourself, in every look and tone whenever he comes near 
you ! I must have been blind had I not seen it.” 

“ I do not admire him, certainly ; nor do I care to cultivate 
the intimacy he would force upon me. For some unexplained 
reason, he has been officious in his attentions to me of late. 
To-night, his intention, in approaching us, was evidently to 
procure an introduction to you. I dare say I appeared rude 
in my determination not to gratify him, but, to be frank, Ruby, 
he is not the man I should choose as the associate of my 
sister, if she were alive ; and I would guard you as jealous- 
ly from possible evil and annoyance as I would my sister — 
or wife ! ” 

His tone sank in saying the last words, and Ruby’s eyelids 
followed suite. 

The officious Veddar seemed to be totally forgotten by both 
during the remainder of the performance. But when they 
gained the vestibule at the close, he met them, blandly smiling. 

“ I was through with my engagement in season to witness the 
last scene. Splendid — wasn’t it? ” 

“Very fine,” rejoined Louis^ freezingly. “Allow me to 
return your lorgnette, Mr. Veddar, with my regrets that we 
have deprived you of the use of it. Good evening ! ” 

Without further colloquy, he drew Ruby forward to the outer 
steps, where he signalled a carriage. Their immediate destina- 
tion was a fashionable restaurant, wdiere they were to sup prior 
to their midnight ride. 

How unmercifully you snubbed that poor fellow,” said 


ruby’s husband. 


85 


Ruby, pathetically, when they were seated. ‘‘ Really, I could 
not help pitying him. He meant to do us a kindness, although 
his manner may have been objectionable.” 

And Louis answered, with more temper than she had ever 
seen him exhibit before, — 

“ Do not you take his part, Ruby, or I shall hate as much as 
I now despise him ! ” 


86 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER VI. 

On the afternoon of the 14th of February, Louis Suydam, 
returning from his day in the city, found lying upon the table, in 
his sitting-room, a small package, and the following billet : — 

“ My dear Mr. Suydam : With many thanks for your kind- 
ness in desiring to present me with the accompanying articles of 
jewelry, I must decline to accept them. My mother disapproves 
entirely of my receiving such costly gifts from yourself, or any 
other young gentleman. 

“ Sincerely your friend, 

“ Rubina M. Sloane.” 

This was written upon a fair sheet of note paper, rather ir- 
regularly, as if the hand that penned it was not very steady ; 
still the production was eminently formal and proper — stiff and 
cold enough to change into stone the heart of the most ardent 
lover. A folded slip had dropped from the enclosure as Louis 
opened it, and upon this he gazed long — until a mist came 
between it and his eyes. 

Ruby had scribbled the following in pencil : — 

“ Dear, dear Friend : I write this secretly to entreat you not 
to be angry with me for obeying my mother’s command. My 
heart is breaking ! I cannot bear the thought of wounding, or 
displeasing you, and I fear this cold, cruel note will do both. 
Believe that I would never, never have written a word of it, if 


/ 


ruby’s husband.' 


87 


I could have helped myself. But what can I’ do? My parents’ 
will is my law. As ever, and forever^ 

“ Gratefully, 

“ Ruby.” 

The rejected gage d' amour consisted of a pin and earrings, — 
emeralds and pearls, — selected by Louis as a philopasna for his 
inamorata. In order to ascertain Ruby’s views upon the 
important subject, he had, a week before, dexterously inveigled 
her into a discussion upon gems in general, and gleaned from 
her artless admissions the intelligence that she “ had a passion 
for” just this combination of the precious particles. He had 
plumed himself upon his diplomacy in extracting the desired 
information, and gone to a world of trouble to procure a set 
'which he fancied 'would meet her approbation and enhance her 
charms. This untoward proceeding on her part, or, more justly 
speaking, upon her mother’s, was a most disagreeable surprise. 

Ten minutes after he broke the seal of the envelope he was on 
the turnpike, supperless, a bleak wind blowing across the marshes 
into his eyes, and his horse measuring off the distance between 
Kriiwen and the meadow-cottage at a rate that would have 
exasperated the livery-stable keeper to the extent of an un- 
precedentedly heavy bill had he witnessed it. Heedless of the 
warning shouts addressed to him by the drivers of unwieldy vans 
coming in the opposite direction, as they made frantic efforts to 
get out of his way, and the mocking cheers of stray pedestrians 
as he flashed past them, he did not abate his hot haste until he 
halted at his destination. Instead of driving around to tlie side- 
entrance, as a privileged hahitue of the dwelling, he tied his 
horse at the gate, and walked up to the front door. Nick an- 
swered his knock. 

“ Ah, good evening, Mr. Suydam ! ” he stammered, apparent- 
ly taken aback by the apparition. “ I didn’t know ’twas you ! 
W alk in. Where’s your horse ? ” 

“ Out there,” — Louis pointed over his shoulder. “ Is Mrs. 
Sloane at home ? ” 


88 


ruby’s husband. 


“ Bless me, he will be stolen, sure as a gun, if you leave him 
there ! I’ll jist lead him round to the barn.” 

“ Don’t trouble yourself, I beg,” in excruciating civility. “ I 
shall not trespass upon Mrs. Sloane’s time for more than five 
minutes. She is in, you said — did you not?” 

“ She is. Please step into the parlor. I must look after 
your animal. ’Twould be a pity for you to have to walk 
home.” 

Nick laughed awkwardly. He was glad to have an excuse 
for getting out of the way while the momentous interview Avas 
in progress. He did not fancy Louis’s looks. The pale, set 
features, glaring eyes, and the ring of his laconic sentences, 
were symptbms of a species of excitement with which he did 
not know how to deal. The horse-dealer could not be relied 
upon in an emergency where brute force was of no avail. He 
summoned his wife from the back room : — 

“ And he’s in a Harry of a temper, I can tell you ! ” he added, 
sotto voce. I’ve mistrusted, all along, that you’d push him 
too near the end of the plank. I wash my hands of the whole 
business. Don’t call me in to settle your quarrels ! ” 

“ I shall not,” replied Mrs. Sloane, composedly. 

She arose, took up a lamp from the table by which she had 
been sitting with her needle-work, and walked directly into the 
parlor. Louis stood near the middle of the room, his over- 
coat still buttoned up to the chin, his hat in his hand. 

“ Good evening, Mr. Suydam,” she said, placing her light 
upon a stand. “ Will you not take a seat? ” 

“No’, thank you ! My business can be stated in a few words. 
You are acquainted Avith the contents of this note, I presume?” 
holding out Ruby’s billet. 

“ I am.” 

“ I am here to ask an explanation of it. In Avhat respect 
have I shoAvn myself to be unAvorthy of the confidence Avith 
Avhich I have been treated under this roof? What have I done 
that I should be suddenly reduced to the place of the merest 
stranger, from Avhom your daughter Avill receive nothing — not 


ruby’s husband. 


89 


even the trifling token of regard which a common acquaintance 
may, without risk of censure, send a young lady upon this day 

“You are neither a stranger, nor a common acquaintance, 
Mr. Suydam, and this is not your first gift. Nor is it a trifle. 
I might say that it is inappropriate for the use of a girl in my 
daughter’s position, but that I know you would deny this. Your 
intention was kind and generous, and it has given me much 
pain to oppose your wishes. But my first duty is to guard my 
child’s happiness. I will be very plain in my explanation, for I 
would not have you misinterpret my motives. I have long seen 
the growing pleasure Ruby took in your society and attentions, 
and, loath as I was to deprive her of the greatest happiness of 
her uneventful life, I have foreseen, for many weeks, that I 
should be compelled to break up an intimacy which could result 
in nothing but misery to her. She is young, confiding, and in- 
experienced. She had never imagined, until I told her, that 
there was anything objectionable in a woman of her rank en- 
couraging such proofs of preference as you have given her from 
a gentleman in yours. It is her earliest lesson in worldly wis- 
dom. I wish I could say that she had learned it readily and 
patiently. Perhaps, however, that was hardly to be expected.” 

“ I should hope not ! ” burst forth the incensed boy, the veins 
in his forehead purple and swollen with indignant compassion. 
“ I honor, and I thank her that she refused to believe me the 
black-hearted villain you have represented me, — one who has 
assiduously sought her regard for his own amusement, who 
would have made her the toy of his idle hours, with no thought 
as to what the end of all this must be ! What do you take me 
for, madam ? ” stamping one foot upon the floor, and confront- 
ing her angrily. 

“ I have never mistaken Mr. Suydam for anything but an 
honorable gentleman,” rejoined Mrs. Sloane, very gently. “But 
you are very young yourself, sir, and youth is hasty and in- 
considerate. I will not deny that my chief reason for exercising 
what you regard as over-caution, was a desire to save my daugh- 
ter from unhappiness ; but I believed, at the same time, that I 


90 


ruby’s husband. 


consulted your true interests in putting a guard upon your 
intercourse. You can judge better than I what your parents’ 
views of this matter would be, what would be the verdict of 
your world — the fashionable world — were it whispered that 
you visited here upon terms of apparent social equality. And 
I, too, am proud ! ” — throwing off the constraint which had, 
until now, kept countenance tranquilly grave, and her voice at 
the subdtred pitch of persuasive argument, she continued, rapid- 
ly and warmly, — “ too proud to have my darling scanned by 
those who are her superiors in nothing except w^ealth ; to see 
her affections won only to be trifled with ! It would kill me to 
know that through your mistaken pity for her, or her slavish 
obedience to your caprices, her heart was broken, her life 
blasted. She is only a poor man’s daughter. You see what 
her home is. From you we have not concealed its meanness 
and its deficiencies. But she is dear to us as if this house were 
a palace, and she a king’s daughter. She is our only treasure. 
Do you wonder that I plead with you to pass her by — not to 
bring sorrow to her heart and our humble dwelling?” 

Louis took the hard, thin hands reverently within his. 

“ Give her to me, my dear madam, and I promise to cherish 
her fondly as you have done ; to love her with that devotion 
tliat teaches a man to leave father and mother, — and heaven 
knows how little cause I have to hold to mine, — and cleave 
unto his wife ! You have misconstrued my attentions wofully, 
if you liave attributed them to any other motive than a strong, 
deep affection for your child — an affection such as I have 
known for nothing else in the world. I have meant, from tlie 
first month of our acquaintanceship, to ask her to marry me, 
when circumstances should justify me in doing so. I had 
thought that you knew me too well to doubt my honor and 
sincerity so grievously.” 

The keen, dark eyes were blind with real tears at these 
words, uttered with the sorrowful naivete of a boy. 

“ Forgive me ! But you cannot understand how suspicious a 
life such as mine has been will make one who once trusted in 


ruby’s husband. 


91 


human goodness and truth, nor how jealous a mother is for the 
peace of mind of her only child. I will never distrust you 
again. Ruby knew you better than I did. Her faith has 
never wavered, nor could all the arguments of her father and 
myself persuade her that you could ever play her false. She 
would have it that you were unlike other men, and I begin to 
think she was right.” 

Her rare smile was very bright, and it irradiated her fea- 
tures into an expression of engaging sweetness. 

“ Heaven bless her for the noblest, truest, best woman that 
ever lived ! ” cried Louis, in a rapture. “ Where is she? May 
I not see and thank her ? ” 

“ Provided you will take back your refusal to lay aside your 
overcoat, and spend the evening with us,” said Mrs. Sloane, 
playfully. 

She left the room, as he complied with the hospitable stipula- 
tion. Up stairs she found Ruby, lying, face downward upon 
the bed, suffocating with laughter. 

“ O ! O ! O ! ” she shouted, sitting upright at her mother’s 
alarmed inquiry as to what ailed her. “ It was too rich to hear 
you speechifying at one another ! I don’t wonder you have been 
so glum all day. You have been composing your address. I 
haven’t heard so many dictionary words, all put together, since 
I left school. And how he blazed out at you, for all the world 
like that blood-and-thunder Richard Third we saw the other 
night ! But you were more than a match for him, old lady ! 
If I do laugh, I am much obliged to you for bringing him to the 
point so cleverly.” 

In the fulness of her gratitude, she actually put her arms 
about her mother’s neck and kissed her. The sallow cheek 
colored under the salute, like a girl’s at her lover’s first caress. 
She could not reprove the eavesdropper for meanness and coarse 
disrespect while the touch of the velvet lips was warm upon 
hers. But she spoke once, out of the abundance of her pained 
heart, before the petted cliild went to meet her lover. 

“ O, Ruby, dear ! you have won a noble husband ! One who 


02 


ruby’s husband. 


deserves all the love a woman can bestow — the love and duty 
of a lifetime. Be very kind, and true, and fond to him.” 

“ Sentiment isn’t in my line,” rejoined Ruby, putting the 
final stroke to her redundant bandeaux, and carefully rubbing 
her pomatumed finger upon a refractory ripple. “ But I shall 
continue to do Lydia Languish as long as it will pay. I am 
supposed to have been drowned in tears all day — am I* not? 
Tears don’t make my eyes red, luckily, nor inflame my nose 
after the manner of snivelling school girls, but they do impart 
a pensive droop to my eyelids and the corners of my mouth 
— thus ! ” grimacing to her likeness in the toilet-glass. 

“ That will do ! You cannot improve yourself,” Mrs. Sloane 
said,. trying to smile. 

But when the beautiful scoffer disappeared, her bond-slave 
buried her shamed face in her hands and wept bitterly. Her 
game was won ! Her daughter was the betrothed of a man 
who loved her truly ; who would, in time, raise her to affluence 
and distinction. But to compass this end, she had sunk herself 
lower in the scale of womanhood and humanity than twenty 
years of suffering and degradation, as Nick Sloane’s wife, ftad 
sufficed to do. She had plotted and lied to ensnare an affec- 
tionate, honorable boy, as the vilest of her sex might have 
scorned to act ; made commerce of her finest feelings, as she had 
played upon his best and most generous impulses. She loathed 
herself for it in an agony of abhorrence that would have led her 
to tear her tongue out by the roots, if by the loss she could have 
effaced the memory of the hateful interview she had just passed 
through. Yet she would not lift a finger to undo her work. 
No ! and in the subsidence of the remorseful transport into 
which the fresh smart of wounded self-respect had betrayed her, 
she confessed to conscience that, if it were to be done over, she 
would not change her plan of action in a single particular. She 
would scheme and lie with a tongue as fluent, and a visage as 
bold, as had served her purpose ten minutes ago. She would 
not hesitate to risk her soul in the service of the idol that 
demanded the hourly expenditure of her bodily and mental 


ruby’s husband. 


93 


forces. She had nothing else to live for, and hers was no half- 
worship. 

Louis forgot that he had not had his supper ; but Ruby came 
into the kitchen for her “ night-cap lunch,” as she called it, at a 
quarter past eleven, while the sound of her lover’s departing 
Avheels was still audible. The emeralds and pearls swung from 
her Cars, shone with modest lustre upon her bosom, where they 
had been placed by the donor’s hand. 

“ His fingers trembled so he could hardly fasten them,” she 
related to her mother, munching her cake the while. “You 
never saw such a bungler ! I sent him away dizzily happy. I 
hope he won’t drive off the turnpike into the ditch. Now to 
bed, old lady. We ought to sleep the sleep of the just, after our 
day’s work.” 



T- ' 


94 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER VII. 

During the fortnight immediately succeeding his precipitate 
betrothal, the heaven of Louis Suydam’s bliss was obscured by 
no envious cloud. He studied with a diligent zest to which he 
had heretofore been a stranger, for he worked now for a definite 
purpose. The prize of his labor hung, visible and glittering, 
before him ; the promise of attaining unto it spurred him on to 
an enthusiasm of effort that would soon have undermined his 
health, but for the relaxation of the evening. He was never at 
his boarding-house after seven P. M., seldom after six, for he 
supped with the Sloanes four nights out of six, and passed the 
entire Sabbath with them. 

Music and French lessons were tacitly abandoned under the 
new dispensation. If he had been enamoured before his engage- 
ment, he was infatuated from the hour of his declaration and 
acceptance. To sit for hours at Ruby’s side, his arm about her 
waist, her hand locked fast in his, her head upon his shoulder, 
or, lapped in dreamy bliss, to lie at her feet, basking in the 
light of her smile, while her fingers stole coyly in and out of his 
hair ; to say over passionate love-words, sweet to him in the 
utterance as distilled honey — painting the coming glories of 
their united lives, and blessing her as his benefactress, his 
savior, his guiding-star ; to hearken' eagerly for the soft con- 
fession of her answering attachment ; — all this filled up the 
measure of his content to rapturous overflowing, left no room 
for forebodings, or aspirations other than such as clustered about 
the single truth of his reciprocated love. 

With the third week there fell a change upon his trance. 


ruby’s husband. 


95 


Ruby, still tender, still responsive to his avowals of devotion 
and claim for a return, became in spirits fitful, unnaturally gay, 
and inexplicably melancholy by turns. Oftentimes he would 
catch her gaze fastened upon himself in wistful scrutiny, or 
note, at the moment when his love was most demonstrative, the 
stifled sigh, the downcast look, the tremulous mouth, that told 
of inward disquiet she yet refused to unbosom to him. It cost 
him four evenings of ingenious cross-examination to elicit the 
expressed reason for these phenomena in the deportment of a 
happy fiancee. When it came, it seemed to be swept forth by a 
torrent of salt tears, the sight of which nearly crazed him with 
anxiety and pity. 

“ Her late shock,” — she thus described, shudderingly, the 
lesson in man’s nature and ways he was given to understand 
had been set for her study by her mother, — “ her recent shock 
had left a painful, and she was beginning to fear, an inefiaceable, 
impression upon her mind. She could not grasp, as a certainty, 
the knowledge of his love. She was haunted by a miserable 
dread that he would yet be lost to her by some unkind decree of 
Fate — some arbitrary ordering of the tyrant. Society, of which 
her mother had told her such horrible things.” 

“ Darling,” interposed Louis, in fond reproach, ‘‘ have you, 
too, learned to doubt me? ” 

Indeed, she had not, she hastened to assure him. Only she 
had come to hold earthly joys so tremblingly, and this, the 
dearest of them all, appeared so like a dream when he was not 
with her ! It was difficult in his absence to persuade herself 
that he would ever come to see her again. Krawen was to her 
excited fancy a pitiless maelstrom, ready to swallow him up — ■ 
which would, at the last, rob her of him. Of course it was 
weak, and foolish, and wrong to let a mere imagination wear 
upon her nerves and spirits as this was doing, but she could 
not help it ; — and now she had made him angry — and — and 
■ — he would cease to love her — with a shower of quick, piteous 
sobs, each of which was a penknife in his heart. 

He renewed his protestations of eternal fidelity ; expostulated, ' 


9G 


ruby’s husband. 


entreated, and reasoned with eloquence, that fairly astonished 
himself, and allayed, in some degree, the tormenting misgivings 
of the pensive betrothed. But the next night the process was 
all to be repeated, and still with but partial success. Mean- 
while her behavior to him was so winning and submissive, her 
love so touchingly manifested in a dozen delicate but flattering 
forms, that he was more madly in love with her every hour 
spent at her side. By a strange, or what would be a strange 
contrariety of emotions, if we did not witness so many illustra- 
tions of it in love affairs, his passion was augmented by the 
torture she applied. He covered with kisses the hands that 
turned the screw of the rack — worshipped her in proportion 
as she made him suffer the pains of purgatory. 

She had been more than usually tantalizing one mid-March 
day, which they passed together in Krawen. Kuby had 
drooped all the week — was languid, and slightly feverish. 
It might be a simple attack of “ spring fever,” and the lassi- 
tude and want of appetite would soon pass away ; or it might 
be nervous prostration, induced by the unsettled state of her 
mind. In either case, a holiday would benefit her ; and on this 
Saturday Louis had brought her to town by an early train, and 
devoted himself to her amusement. They visited several pic- 
ture galleries, a museum, and about a dozen shops, to look 
at the spring goods, said Ruby, to whom this part of the 
programme was as interesting as it was tiresome to her cava- 
lier. He compensated himself for the ennui he sustained, as he 
stood by, like a counter-dummy, and saw her tumble over arti- 
cles of which he knew neither the names nor use, by presenting 
her with something in nearly every store they visited. A fan, 
a pair of embroidered gloves, a handkerchief, a vinaigrette, and 
a lace collar were stowed away in his pockets for safe keeping. 
Upon the receipt of each she had flushed with happy surprise, 
deprecated his generosity, and thanked him in low, thrilling 
tones, that inclined him yet the more to play the spendthrift. 

It was one o’clock when they went for a lunch to Taillard’s, 
renowned all over the land for unequalled creams, incomparable 


ruby’s husband. 


97 . 


chocolate, and unparalleled prices. Louis ordered the feast, 
unassisted by his companion, who, on former occasions, had 
diverted and charmed him by her pretty pretence of impatience 
at the slow waiters, and relishful appreciation of the viands 
after they were brought. She sat by, ‘silent and abstracted, 
while he issued his directions aside to the attendant. When 
the covers were removed, and she perceived that he had con- 
sulted her taste in the choice of every dish, she smiled across 
the table at him — a slow, thoughtful gleam, not many removes 
from tearfulness. 

“ How good you are ! Indeed, dear Louis, I am conscious 
of, and thank you for all you do for me ! I am conscious, too, 
how little I appear to deserve it.” 

“ Nonsense ! ” said Louis, gayly. “ If you want to testify 
your gratitude, here is an opportunity. I shall believe in the 
genuineness of it just in proportion to the justice you do your 
dinner.” 

Ruby received the plate he loaded with tit-bits in resignation 
a martyr might burn to emulate. To please him she was pre- 
pared to do all things, even to eat the appetizing food for which 
her mouth secretly watered. She achieved the task with a 
laudable counterfeit of satisfaction. Louis’s eyes could discern 
that it was a forced show ; but to less loving optics she looked 
like a beautiful girl in high health, disposing comfortably of an 
excellent luncheon. The dessert was a surprise — great, scar- 
let, hot-house strawberries blushing through powdered sugar, 
and flanked by a silver pitcher of rich cream. Ruby laughed 
outright at seeing them. The next moment there was danger, 
seemingly, that the fruit would be sprinkled with brine from the 
eyes bent above them. Louis waited until the passing struggle 
with her emotion had subsided, until more than one berry, less 
ripe and fresh than her lips, had regaled her hysterical palate, 
before he asked, leaning over the narrow board separating 
them, — 

“ What troubles my darling to-day? Tell me all about it, 
without reserve.” 


7 


98 


RUBY S HUSBAND. 


“ It could do no good,” Eiiby objected, balancing her spoon, 
laden with a big strawberry, upon the side of the saucer, and 
personating, alternately, the fairy sisters, Rose-red and Snow- 
white. “ Only time and patience can bring relief to me. Why 
should I distress you about that which cannot be helped ? ” 

The last berry was swallowed, she eating them deliberately 
and mechanically, as one who had no thought or care for the 
things pertaining to the body, before his earnest appeal in be- 
half of his right to be informed of all that concerned her hap- 
piness wrought any visible change in her resolution. 

“ You have a way of making me do as you like, however 
contrary obedience may be to my inclination or judgment,” she 
conceded at length. “ I am in sore perplexity just now. I 
have not slept a wink in three nights. It would be an un- 
speakable relief to tell you everything ; but I am sure it Avould 
not be best.” 

Another pause, and a meditative tattoo upon the saucer’s 
edge with the empty spoon. 

“ And I am sure it is the very thing you ought to do,” urged 
Louis, confidently. “ You are to promise to obey me one of 
these days. Suppose you practise a little in advance. I will 
take the responsibility of the confession.” 

“You have seen Mr. Stainsly two or three times at our house 
— have you not?” interrogated Ruby, suddenly. 

“ The red-faced widower, who is always bringing lame or 
sick horses to your father to be doctored, and ahvays thunder- 
struck at the news that he has been cheated into buying another 
unsound one ? Yes — what of him ? ” 

“ He has been in love with me for two years, he says.” 

Louis lay back in his chair, and laughed as loudly as his 
sense of the publicity of the place would permit him to do. 
Ruby was graver than before. 

“ Pardon me,” he said, recovering himself sufiiciently to ar- 
ticulate. “ But the suggested association struck me as irre- 
sistibly absurd. Not that anybody — even a Mr. Stainsly 

should discover that you arc the most lovable creature in 


ruby’s husband. 


99 


the universe, but that he should presume to lift his stupid eyes 
to you with any such desire as you have intimated. Tlie egre- 
gious old blockhead ! If he were a younger man, I would cane 
him for his impertinence. As it is, his age protects him by 
making him merely ridiculous.” 

“ My father takes a ditferent view of the subject,” pursued 
Ruby, looking more and more troubled. “ Mr. Stainsly is in 
easy circumstances, if not wealthy. He lives at a handsome 
place, a few miles out of town. He has no children, or other 
near relatives, to interfere with the reign of his second wife. 
He has asked me to marry hiin, and offered my parents a home 
in his house so long as they shall live.” 

Another and a much longer break in the stream of conver- 
sation. Ruby played with her spoon, — the nervous tinkle 
against the china evincing her perturbation. Louis sat per- 
fectly still, his hands clasped together upon the table, his head 
bowed in profound thought. 

“ Your father wants you to break your engagement with me, 
and marry this man ! ” he said, harshly, at length. “ He 
would sell you, in order to put a genteel shelter over his own 
head ! What was your answer ? ” 

“ Can you ask? ” 

The question was a whisper, issuing from lips that hardly 
parted, while the eyes were not raised from the spoon, the 
oscillations of which she appeared to count ; but it went to the 
lowest depths of Louis’s heart. 

“ I need not ask. I should be a base, unmanly hound, were 
I to suspect you of language or thought that savored of dis- 
loyalty to me. As for your father, this unfeeling persecution 
of his only child is not what I looked for from him.” 

“ Do not condemn him too severely ! ” begged Ruby, plain- 
tively. “ Poverty is a fearful teacher, and you have no idea 
how poor he is — to what straits he is sometimes driypn .in 
order to procure for his family the bare necessaries of life. 
He is weary of the long battle, and he is growing old. A 
comfortable home for his declining years, a certain mainte- 


100 


ruby’s husband. 


nance for himself and wife, are mighty temptations. More- 
over, he honestly believes that I would consult my real interests 
in giving to this offer mature consideration. ‘ Should I die 
to-morrow, you and your mother would be beggars,’ he said to 
me yesterday. ‘ Mr. Suydam himself would agree with me 
that a chance of such a settlement as this ought not to be 
thrown away without thinking it well over!* Now — as I 
need not tell you — all this talk has had no effect in altering 
my resolution. I could not marry Mr. Stainsly had I never 
seen you. As it is — ** Here occurred an eloquent hiatus, in 
-which eyes were the medium of converse. Then Ruby re- 
sumed her line of speech. “ But this is the idea that has occu- 
pied my. brain for several days, until I am nearly beside myself 
with perplexity. My father is not able to bear the whole bur- 
den of my support. He has almost beggared himself in order 
to give me a good education, and I ought to be making some 
return for it. My plan is to advertise for a place as governess, 
or as a teacher in a school, public or private. I have already 
written to the principal of the seminary in which I graduated, 
inquiring if she knows of a situation which will suit me ; and I 
thought, if this were to fail me, I might, perhaps, succeed in get- 
ting a position in one of the Krawen public schools. Mamma 
so dreads the prospect of my going far away, that this may 
be the best plan after all, although the remuneration will 
be small.” 

She made this statement with melancholy composure. Hav- 
ing decided which was the path of duty, she meant to walk in 
it ; but she regretted none the less tire paradise of love and 
liberty she was leaving. 

She could not have introduced a theme more obnoxious to 
her auditor. He had a horror of pedagogues of both genders, 
regarding school-teaching as the least desirable occupation 
knowji in civilized countries, and doubtful as to which was the 
more to be pitied, the tutor or the governed. The picture of 
Ruby, in her luxuriance of life and beauty, shut up for eight 
hours per diem in a formal school-room, the slave of parents* 


ruby’s husband. 


101 


whims and pupils^ impertinence ; growing rigid and prim in the 
effort to maintain authority over her rebellious subjects ; re- 
moved from her mother’s tender offices and his caresses ; pining 
for these and home, like some bright tropical bird in a cage, 
was unendurable. Yet, if what she had said of the state of 
her father’s finances was correct, she was right in affirming 
that something must be done, or attempted, to relieve her 
parents. 

“ I wish,” he said, hesitatingly, that your father would re- 
ceive, in the spirit in which I should offer it, such assistance as 
I can render him. My income, as fixed by my father, is more 
than sufficient for my wants. I have surely the right to act in 
this exigency, as your husband would, were the like to occur 
after our marriage.” 

“ Are there no limits to your goodness?” asked Ruby, strug- 
gling bravely with the feeling that suffused her eyes and bur- 
dened her voice to indistinctness. “ And do you imagine for a 
moment that we will be so far outdone in generosity as to allow 
you to rob yourself for our sake? I should not dare name your 
proposal to my father, much less my mother, who is prouder 
and more sensitive than he. We must bear our misfortunes for> 
ourselves, with what fortitude we can summon to our aid. I 
wonder sometimes, Louis, if I have not run counter to the 
manifest intention of Providence in engaging to marry you. 
There is something unnatural in the contemplated union of our 
lives — the one so poor, and overshadowed by so many ignoble 
cares, the other bright with present prosperity, and rich in 
promise of yet brighter days to come. Is it not selfish and 
cruel in me to hold you bound by a contract, according to 
which I gain everything and you nothing? ” 

Her faint, mournful smile imparted pathos to the query no 
combination of words could have conveyed. 

Louis replied by a look, fixed, searching, passionate. She 
should not lay another stone of the barricade she was trying to 
erect between them — a barrier in which pride and self-denying 
love were equal component parts. It was time the masculine 


102 


ruby’s husband. 


will asserted its sovereignty — time for him to lead, in place 
of following meekly at her chariot wheels. She had strangely 
misconstrued the reason of his habitual compliance to her ex- 
pressed desires if she believed, however vaguely, that he would 
see her happiness and his love laid upon the altar of filial duty, 
or murdered to meet the demands of a mistaken regard for his 
welfare. The false principle had wrought enough harm. He 
would efiTectually prevent its further progress and fruits. 

Ruby ! ” — he had found her hand under the table, and 
clutched it in a hold that almost forced a cry of pain from her 
lips, — “ have you forgotten that you are mine f — that nothing 
except death can separate us? — that the commands of father 
and mother are as idle wind, if opposed to my wishes? Do 
you recollect telling me, the night of our betrothal, ‘ I will be 
yours, Louis, whenever you see fit to claim me ’ ? How dare 
you intimate the possibility of our being again strangers to one 
another? — of our ever becoming less to each other than we 
are now? There is but one course left to me, but one which 
Avill lay your scruples to rest forever, and allay the torturing 
anxiety to which I should, from this moment, be subject ; the 
uncertainty I must hereafter feel when absent from you, lest 
influences untoward to our love should be brought to bear upon 
you, or lest you, in the extravagance of your generosity, should 
resolve to set me free, impelled by what you are deceiving your- 
self into believing is for my real good. That course is to marry 
you at once — to assume my right of caring for, and guarding 
you amid the trials and snares by which you are environed. 
This must be done this very day — if possible, within this 
hour ! 

“ Are you mad?” 

She looked at him with a glassy glare, and her face was 
deathly pale. 

“ No ; only growing sensible,” he returned, with the abrupt 
laugh that was with him an unerring symptom of intense feel- 
ing. “ Stay here until I come back.” 

Ruby was not so absorbed in meditation upon this new and 


ruby's husband. 


103 


important change in the day’s programme, as not to note and 
smile at the adroitness with which the obsequious waiter inter- 
cepted the impatient customer before he gained the door, and 
presented the “ check ” for the luncheon he had left behind, and 
the frown with which Louis threw the bit of pasteboard and a 
bank-note upon the cashier’s desk, and strode out without 
thinking of the change due him. When he disappeared in the 
crowded street, she heaved a long sigh, and settled herself 
more comfortably upon her chair. 

“ The deed is done, and well done, though I say it that 
shouldn’t ! ” she said, “ I dare say he will be away for half an 
hour or so. I should so like to have another saucer of straw 
berries ! I wouldn’t mind paying well for them, since I am 
soon to have an abundance of pocket money.” 

With characteristic shrewdness she beckoned a waiter to her, 
and inquired what the luxury would cost. His answer made 
her widen her eyes and shake her head in peremptory refusal. 
As the man turned away, she smiled again. 

“ Three dollars a saucer ! My sighing swain is certainly 
losing his wits ! ” 

She consoled herself for the disappointment by munching the 
cakes left upon the plate before her, and sipping the remnant of 
yellow cream in the pitcher, when she had sugared it plentifully. 
Then she arose and walked up the saloon, attracting many eyes 
by her assured grace and pretty visage, until she gained the 
ladies’ dressing-room. By a singular accident, comb, brush, 
and pomatum pot were in the tiny satchel she had brought to 
the city with her, and she whiled away a quarter of an hour iu 
re-dressing her hair and washing her face and hands. 

“ A bride should always look her best ! ” she muttered, re- 
tying the blue ribbons in a more careful knot under her white 
chin, patting down and pulling out the bandeaux framing her 
rosy face. “ But I flatter myself that I will do ! ” 

She had waited nearly an hour, when a carriage drove up to 
the front door, and Louis alighted. He marched directly up to 
her, and drew her hand within his arm. 


104 


ruby’s husband. 


“ Come ! ” 

No other word passed between them until they had left the 
throng and turmoil of the chief thoroughfares for a higher and 
comparatively quiet portion of the great Babel. Louis had 
not released the fingers he had taken in his as the carriage 
door shut them in, and he raised them to his lips before he 
said, — 

“ I would not hurry you into an action which you may here- 
. after bitterly regret. If the thought of our immediate union is 
distasteful to you, do not hesitate to signify this, and I will abide 
your pleasure. Another block will bring us to the house of the 
clergyman I have engaged to perform the ceremony.’’ 

He stooped until his hair touched her face, to catch the bash- 
ful reply. 

“ It shall be as you think best ! ” 

Meadow Cottage — this was the name that stood at the head 
of the letters written by Ruby to her distant school-fellows and 
her perfumed billets to her betrothed — Meadow Cottage, then, 
wore an air of festive expectation that evening. Louis had 
promised to take tea with Mrs. Sloane, and the anticipated 
visit of a guest so esteemed by the whole family as was the 
future son-in-law, would account for the savory supper, filling 
the kitchen with appetizing odors for the damask table-cloth, 

, and the shining cleanliness of every part of the small estab- 
lishment ; for Mrs. Sloane’s best delaine dress; Nick’s newly- 
shaven chin and white shirt ; but it failed to explain the nervous 
solicitude that had characterized the mother’s countenance and 
demeanor all day, from the moment she had kissed her child 
“good by” in the morning, to that in the evening, when, hav- 
ing gone to Ruby’s room, ostensibly to see if the fire was burn- 
ing, and found it so warm, bright, and orderly, that even her 
critical housewifery could detect no room for improvement, she 
approached the window for the twentieth time since sunset, and 
strained her eyes in the direction of the railroad. 

“ If I should not carry my point, I shall be home by three 
o’clock,” Ruby had said, while preparing for her momentous 


ruby’s husband. 


105 


expedition. “ I shan’t care to stay later, unless I see there is 
a prospect of bringing him to terms.” 

Whatever Ruby determined to do she generally accomplished. 
Her mother, knowing this better than did any other person liv- 
ing, had not doubted, even momentarily, that she would return 
to her Louis Suydam’s wife. In this conviction, she had toiled 
like a galley slave to make the best of the poor abode in honor 
of her child’s nuptials ; had — a more unpleasant, if not more 
arduous task — drilled her undiplomatic husband in the part he 
was to play ; urged him to bear in mind that the marriage 
was purely Louis’s idea ; unlooked for, and, in view of Mr. 
Suydam’s unfinished medical course, undesired by Ruby’s par- 
ents ; instructed him to meet the pair with a show of cheerful 
unconsciousness of any change in their relative positions, and 
to receive the tidings with an outbreak of amazement and con- 
cern. It was more than disagreeable, it was loathsome work, 

— almost as bad as the labored falsehoods she had told Louis 
to force him into a declaration. Nick’s objections to and com- 
ments upon the plan of operations — most of all, his coarsely- 
expressed satisfaction at this consummation of their manmiivres 

— augmented her disgust for him, for the vile businesjy^e yet 
maintained was necessary to the promotion of her dau^iter’s 
welfare, and, above everything else, for herself. • 

“Ah, my darling, you will never know what your mother 
has done and borne to make you happy ! ” she said, half aloud, 
leaning her forehead against the window sash, and closing her 
weary eyes. “ Will you ever be grateful for what you do 
know, I wonder ? ” 

Was the punishment for her double-dealing beginning in the 
dull pain that oppressed her breast with this unanswered ques- 
tion? Was the stifled sigh the first breath of the whirlwind 
which was to sweep away all comfort and hope from her whose 
laborious sowing had been the wind? She shook ofif the mys- 
terious dread creeping over her. 

“It is for my child ! ” she made reply to groaning con- 
science. 


106 


ruby’s husband. 


If she had strangled the boy bridegroom in his sleep, and 
robbed him to buy jewels for Ruby’s neck and arms, she would 
have entered the same plea at the tribunal of earthly, and per- 
haps of heavenly, justice. All other commendable feelings of 
her nature had been crushed into inactivity by twenty years’ 
repression, and their combined strength seemed to have passed 
into the growth of the motherly instinct, until it had become a 
moral excrescence. Her daughter was coming home to her, 
the triumphant bride of an adoring husband. She must see 
no traces of sadness upon the face of one Avho loved her better 
than even he could ever do. The constancy and fervor of his 
attachment would be hereafter, in some measure, contingent 
upon his wife’s amiability and return of his devotion. The 
mother’s would outlive neglect, unkindness, the decay of the 
charms that had enslaved his fancy — every vicissitude of time, 
place, and fortune. 

Ruby was married ! A strange inipulse seized this woman, 
who never entered a church, whose tongue had not formed a 
ptayer in years. She wanted to consecrate her daughter’s 
bridal eve and bridal chamber by some form of invocation that 
should act as a charm in shielding her new life from evil. She 
locked the door, and knelt beside the white bed, folding her 
hands and closing her eyes, as she was wont to do in the long, 
long ago, when she believed in human goodness, in human hap- 
piness, and in the divine care. 

“ Our Father who art in heaven,” she said, in trembling 
accents, “ bless my child ! Make her happy and make her 
good ! ” ^ 

Then a horror of loneliness enveloped her. She seemed to 
be the sole inhabitant of an immensity of space, through the 
far depths of which her words went shuddering up to the ear 
of the Holy One, and His eye looked down, in calm severity, 
upon her naked heart. 

What had she to do with prayer and with God? She had 
been walking away from Him from the days of her innocent 
childhood ; had said in act, if not in language, “ I have no need 
of Thee.” 


ruby’s husband. 


107 


Would a few stiff petitions, — formulas all, — repeated, rath- 
er as the pagan recites his incantation to an unknown deity, than 
as the Christian talks humbly, yet fearlessly, with his Father, 
purchase grace and favor from a Being jealous for His honor? 

It was a relief that her husband shouted her name from the 
foot of the staircase. She had no time to ponder upon these 
things now, at any rate. Eising from her knees, with another 
and a deeper sigh, she obeyed the call. 

“ There’s a carriage coming down the road ! ” said Nick, his 
face a shade less rubicund than usual with suspense and excite- 
ment. “ It’s them, sure as you’re born ! I’ll bet a horse now 
that they’ve come home as they went. You women are always 
a-kicking over the mush pot by your hurrying ways. Ten to 
one Ruby’s sp’ilt the whole game by showing her hand too soon. 
I had nothing to do with it. I’ll tell Suydam so, if she has 
botched the matter.” 

His wife said nothing. She drew up her chair to the side- 
table, fitted her thimble to her finger, and began hemming a ruffle 
for Ruby, with an appearance of utter indifference. 

Nick eyed her curiously. 

“ You’re a cool one ! ” he observed, with an oath. “ You 
and that ar’ high-stepping filly colt of yourn would make the 
spiritedest team in the country. I should like to see the jump 
that would balk you. There they are ! ” 

A carriage had stopped at the front of the house. 

“ We are getting too grand to drive into the side yard!” 
sneered Nick, as he went to answer the knock that followed. 

The hackman had driven off before he admitted Ruby and 
Louis, and he returned to the kitchen more gayly than he had 
left it. 

“ I guess it’s all right 1 ” he whispered to his wife. ‘‘ Ruby 
tipped me a wink behind his back. They’re in the parlor, and 
he told me to ask you to step in there with me. He wants to 
see both on us together.” 

Mrs. Sloane quilted her needle into the cambric before laying 
it down. Her lips were slightly compressed, but her features 


108 


ruby’s husband. 


were otherwise tranquil, when she appeared in the outer-room. 
Louis had untied and removed Ruby’s bonnet, and was in the 
act of unbuttoning her cloak. He withdrew it from her shoul- 
ders, passed his arm about her waist, and faced her parents, 
his eyes glittering, his countenance set in determination, that 
gave him the mien of a man of thirty. 

“ Mrs. Sloane — Mr. Sloane, I have sent for you to tell you 
that your daughter is now my wife ! ’* ’ , 


ruby’s husband. 


109 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Seven months had passed since the date of the secret mar- 
riage, and it was a secret still to the world outside the walls of 
Meadow Cottage. It had been decided upon in family conclave 
on the Sabbath which was the morrow to the wedding-day, that 
it should not be published until the return of Louis’s parents. 
The intelligence that their son had committed the indiscretion 
of espousing a portionless and obscure bride, while he was him- 
self dependent upon his father for a livelihood, was an awkward 
matter to communicate by letter. And Louis, when pressed by 
Mrs. Sloane’s serious and sensible interrogations, was obliged to 
admit that his father was subject to irascible fits, that he was 
stubborn and immovable if not approached in the right way, 
while his mother \vas a very Mrs. Merdle in her slavish obe- 
dience to the fiat of society. 

Mrs. Sloane had stated the situation tersely. Ruby receiving 
her share of the maternal rebuke with drooping lids and the 
mouth of a naughty, yet loving child, who is longing to say, 
“ I wou^t do so any more ! ’’ then kiss and make friends with 
the Mentor. Louis was brave and sanguine, proud of what he 
had done, and ready to meet the consequences of that which 
the astute matron reprobated as “ rashness.” 

‘‘ You have done a most imprudent thing, Mr. Suydam ! ” 
she pronounced. “ It is always dangerous to place one’s self in 
a false position. It is of comparatively slight importance to 
Ruby that your marriage must be concealed until you can break 
the news in person to your father, or, in the event of his re- 
maining abroad longer than you now anticipate, until you are 


RUBY S HUSBAND. 


. 110 

established in your profession. She has no intimate friends, no 
visitors — very few acquaintances. But it would be ruinous 
to your prospects in life if your — what it is the fashion in your 
circle to call entanglement were suspected yet a while. Your 
parents would have a right to be angry, and to decline to con- 
tinue your income or to receive your wife. My daughter must 
never enter any family upon sufferance. Until you can guar- 
antee her a cordial recognition from yours, she must remain in 
her father’s house. It is a plain home, but she is welcome and 
beloved here.” 

“ We fared better at mother’s hands than I had feared we 
should,” Ruby said afterwards to her husband. “ She has such 
an aversion to any clandestine transaction ! Only her love for 
me and regard for you saved us from her severe displeasure. 
And we couldn’t have said a word in our own defence, Louis, 
dear ! We have acted very imprudently, — ;in short, like a pair 
of love-sick simpletons, — don’t you think so ? I suppose I 
ought to be horribly penitent for our misdemeanor ; but some- 
how I cannot work myself up to the state of mind prescribed 
in similar cases by the religious novels. I am not a bit sorry 
yet ! ” hiding her face upon his shoulder as she made the artless 
avowal. 

“ And you never shall be, my pet, if I can help it ! ” answered 
Louis, caressing the bright head with exultant fondness. “ All 
will come right by and by. Meantime we have each other ; 
and what is the outside world to us ? ” 

Outwardly, then, there was little apparent change in the rela- 
tions of the Sloanes and their visitor. He retained his lod<xiu<rs 
in Kriiwen, and no one seemed to interest himself sufficiently 
in his movements to notice his comings and goings. If his 
place were vacant at the table at breakfast, it was supposed 
that he had overslept himself; or at supper, that he had taken 
that meal in Kroywen. “ He was always an unsocial fellow — 
consumedly close-mouthed about his personal affairs,” said the 
men. “ A woman-hater, who visited nowhere, and cared for 
nobody,” said the ladies. “ Really, the habits of young men in 


ruby's husband. 


Ill 


the higher circles were dreadful nowadays ! The very founda- 
tions of society were being broken up.” 

How much hoarser would have been the growls, how much 
louder and more shrill the shrieks over his delinquencies, had 
one of the respectable cabal suspected his connection with the 
questionable characters composing the Meadow Cottage house- 
hold, he never troubled himself to thiuk. 

Seven months then had gone by. The snow had melted 
from the meadows, and their vernal garb of dappled green 
refreshed the eyes of the hundreds of passengers who threw a* 
flying glance upon them from car windows ; the grass had 
grown rank and darkly verdant under the suns of July and 
August, and yellowed for the September harvest ; and now the 
cool nights and w'arm noons of October helped to make more 
sere the brown wastes. There was earnest of fine sport for 
November, in the flocks of white-breasted snipe that fluttered 
from pool to pool over the dry rushes and ran nimbly along the 
edge of the ditches, and in the occasional glimpses which a wary 
eye caught, on cloudy days, of fleets of ducks sailing majestically 
under the sedgy banks of brackish pond and tidal river. 

One moonlight evening, in the third week of October, Louis 
walked out from town to Meadow Cottage. He had done this 
before, but not often ; and although the night was not warm, 
he was very pale, and there were drops of sweat hanging upon 
his forehead as he greeted his wife and her parents.. 

‘‘ Are you not well? ** asked Mrs. Sloane. 

She was becoming greatly attached to her son-in-law. His 
deferential kindness to herself, his forbearance with her hus- 
band, and his indulgent fondness for her daughter, had gained 
her grateful regard. She watched his countenance, studied his 
tastes, and anticipated his wishes with a tincture of the spaniel- 
like attachment she displayed for Ruby. 

“ I am quite well, 1 thank you, my dear madam,” he answered. 

“ I liave had a headache all day, but it left me at sunset. Ruby, 
love, can you take a stroll down the road with me? The air is ^ 
delightful, and the exercise will do you good.” 


112 


ruby’s husband. 


“Isn’t it terribly dusty?” she demurred to the affectionate 
invitation. “ And I do so hate to walk, Louis ! You are for- 
ever on your feet lately. I am not surprised that you should 
look like a lean ghost.” 

He did not smile at her pettish trifling. Neither did he yield 
his point. 

“ I particularly desire that you should gratify me this even- 
ing,” he said, mildly, but very gravely. “ I will bring you 
back when you complain of fatigue. Come, dearest ! ” 

Mrs. Sloane had slipped up stairs for Ruby’s mantle and 
straw hat, and Louis, taking them from her with the respectful 
acknowledgment of her attentions that rfe\*er failed to denote 
his appreciation .of her thoughtfulness, and contrasted r^resh- 
ingly with Ruby’s indifference and Nick’s boorishness, put them 
upon his wife, she standing like a pouting doll while he was 
thus employed, and led her into the outer air. 

“ We shall be eaten up by mosquitos! ” she fretted, before 
they had gone ten steps. “ Haven’t you a cigar with you?” ^ , 

He had, and lighted it to please her.^ But he evidently did 
not enjoy it. He smoked fast and carelessly, wrapped "'in 
thought so profound that Ruby soon had another cause 



complaint. 


“ Really, Louis, I don’t know what to make of you to-nigm ! 
You are glum and stupid as possible. You haven’t said a word 
since we came out, and you are puffing all that hateful smoke 
into my face 1 ” 

“ I ask your pardon, darling ! I only smoked at your re- 
quest. I will be more careful. As to my silence and absent- 
mindedness, I have enough to make me sadly thoughtful, 
sweet. I had a letter from my father to-day. My brother 
Frederic is dead.” 

“ Indeed I How very sad ! I thought he was improving.” 

“ So they hoped. But the symptoms that encouraged them 
to expect his recovery belonged to the many illusive phases of 
that most deceitful of all maladies, consumption. He relapsed 
suddenly, and the last struggle was brief. He died at Havre. 
Poor Fred ! ” 


ruby’s husband. 


113 


Sympathy with the bereaved being a novel role for Ruby, 
she held her peace, only squeezing the arm on which she 
leaned tightly, as an intimation that her feelings were inex- 
pressible. 

“ This news has shocked me strangely,” Louis resumed, — 
“ strangely, because Fred and I did not love one another as 
many, as most brothers do. There was a difference of seven 
years in our .ages, and we were very dissimilar in character. 
He was a gay, dashing fellow, a brilliant talker, an accom- 
plished ladies’ man, and, of course, a universal favorite. At 
home he was quite a different creature. I used to be thankful 
he spent so little time there. But we will not discuss his 
foibles. Since this morning I have striven to remember that 
he was my brother ; that he, now and then, said a pleasant or 
sportive word t^ me ; that he never struck me, as my eldest 
brother often did ; how handsome and gifted he w’as, — and 
that he is dead. Dead ! Yes, he knows the mystery of mys- 
teries now ! ” 

He added this musingly, looking up to the clear vault over- 
head, his face marble-white in the moonbeams. Ruby, still at 
a loss what to say, shivered and sighed, and elevated her eyes 
at the same angle with his. Internally she was sickening of 
this gloomy talk. People died every day ; and since Louis had 
believed, long ago, that his brother was far gone in a decline, 
what else could he have expected ? As for this metaphysical 
jargon about the mystery of mysteries, it sounded like Carlyle 
and fustian in the mouth of a flesh-and-blood man. It was a 
matter of infinitely more consequence to her to recollect that 
old Mr. Suydam had but two children left now ; that she and 
Louis would, if the father were cleverly reconciled to their 
stolen marriage, be one third richer for Frederic’s decease. In 
her opinion he had acted benevolently and sensibly in shuflling 
off* the mortal coil he had borne with such difficulty and pain 
of late years. 

“ How did your parents bear the shock? ” she inquired pres- 
ently, aware that she must say something. Silence, even when 
8 


114 


ruby’s husband. 

m 

fraught with sympathy such as hers, Avould not serve her turn 
forever. 

“ My father’s letter was short. He is not one to express his 
feelings freely in speech or writing. Yet I can perceive that 
he is deeply moved, and he says my mother was completely 
prostrated by the violence of her grief. Fred was her favorite 
son. She was very proud of him. He made his dehut in 
society as her escort. I recollect their going out together, 
night after night, and her laughing lamentations when he, as 
she expressed it, learned to fly alone, and disdained her chaper- 
onage.” 

“ She is a very handsome woman — isn’t she? ” 

“ Yes ; I believe she was a beauty in her youth ; and she has 
taken excellent care of her 'physique. But I do not know my 
mother very well, pet ; not nearly so intimately as I do yours. 
I have been left pretty much to my own devices since I was 
emancipated from the nursery. I hope to introduce you to my 
parents before long. My father writes that they will sail by 
the next steamer. They will bring poor Fred’s remains with 
them. Their house is to be set in order, and they expect to 
take up their permanent abode in Krawen.” 

This was tidings worth the telling and hearing. Ruby’s 
heart beat as it had not done upon her wedding-day. A few 
more weeks and her fate would be decided. She would take 
her rightful place in the ranks of the Krawen elite,, or be dis- 
carded by her husband’s aristocratic kinspeople, and compelled 
to await a slower method of promotion, viz., his advancement 
in his profession. She did not seriously apprehend the latter 
and mortifying event. Her valuation of her charms and abili- 
ties — never modest — had been immeasurably increased by 
her success in entrapping her gentleman-lover. Give her but 
a fair chance, and she would captivate father and mother as 
easily and effectually as she had the son. This foothold se- 
cured, she saw herself, in imagination, the reigning queen of 
fashion, the belle of Krawen, the possessor of countless silk and 
satin gowns, and as many sets of jewelry as there were days in 
the month. 


ruby’s husband. 


115 


They had reached the bridge, and were resting against the 
parapet, watching the stream of molten silver slipping slowly 
through the arches down towards the sea. By daylight it was 
a muddy, ugly, overgrown creek, miserably tame in the ab- 
sence of rapids in its bed and trees upon the banks. To-night 
there was weird grandeur in the shadowless silence of the 
smooth sheet above and below the bridge. Leaning upon the 
railing, Louis beheld reflected, as from plate-glass, every linea- 
ment of the faces bending over the water — the gleam of Ruby’s 
eyes, the undulations of her hair, the fall of the white plume in 
her hat, the vivid scarlet of her mantle. '■ 

“ Mine looks but a sombre figure beside yours, dear,” he 
said, in fanciful melancholy. “ We might personate light and 
shade, mirth and sorrow, or any other pair of strongly-con- 
trasted opposites. How beautiful you are, my own wife ! ” 

She snatched away the hand he would have pressed. 

“ Hark ! Some one is coming ! ” 

A horse’s hoofs struck sharply upon the farther extremity of 
the bridge. The driver sat in a spider-like trotting sulky, and, 
seen in the distance, looked the dandy jockey to perfection. The 
moon was at his back. He was close upon the pedestrians 
before they recognized in him Louis’s especial aversion, Bogart 
Veddar. 

“ Halloo, Suydam ! ” reining in his horse. “ How came 
you in this outlandish region at this hour?” 

He removed his hat in a low obeisance to Ruby, who re- 
turned it graciously. 

‘‘ I walked out from town,” responded Louis. 

Touching his wife’s arm, he would have gone on across the 
bridge ; but Veddar stayed him. 

“ I was very sorry to see the notice of poor Fred’s death 
in the evening papers. He was a particular friend of mine. 
Does your father intend returning home forthwith? ” 

“ He does.” Another impatient movement. 

“ When do you expect him? ” 

“ I cannot tell certainly.” 


116 


RUBY S HUSBAND. 


“ I shall do myself the honor of waiting upon your mother 
shortly after her arrival. Please assure her of my sincere sym- 
pathy with her in her affliction.” 

“ I will. Good night ! ” 

Ruby, perforce, followed her lord’s lead, but she did so with 
a bad grace. She really admired Veddar’s person, and his 
swaggering address was the acme of manly grace in her sight. 
Louis’s disrelish of his companionship, and' determination not 
to give him the claim of acquaintanceship upon her notice, was 
an unfortunate augury of her contemplated belleship. 

“ I must say, Louis,” she began, when the roll of wheels 
upon the flinty road had died away, — “I must say that your 
behavior, whenever w'e meet any of your friends, is very odd. 
You should not have married me if you were ashamed of me. 
As a matter of course, I do not wish to be presented to them 
as your wife until the right time arrives ; but you need not 
behave as if you were engaged in a disgraceful intrigue with a 
girl wdiose name you are unwilling to make known.” 

Louis stopped stock still in astonishment. 

“ Why, my precious child ! what are you dreaming of? I 
explained to you, the night we met that fellow at the opera, 
that liQ was not a fit associate for any virtuous woman. If I 
had a house, he should never darken the door, or touch your 
hand. Ashamed of you ! It is because I love and honor you, 
that I would keep such as he at a distance.” 

• He visits your mother, it seems ! ” rejoined Ruby, with 
an angry sob. - “ You didn’t resent his proposal to call upon 
her.” 

“ I am not the guardian of my mother’s morals or character. 
Moreover, he was Fred’s friend, and she is favorably inclined 
towards him on that account. A woman of her age and stand- 
ing can do, with impunity, that which would fatally damage the 
reputation of one who is young, handsome, and a novice in tfl 
world’s Avays.” 

‘‘ If you are afraid to trust me, you had better lock me up in 
a convent at once ! ” retorted the wife, yet §aore intemperately. 


ruby’s husband. 


117 


“ I understand the drift of all this. You have lost respect for 
and confidence in me since the hour in which I weakly yielded 
to your importunities, and married you upon less than four 
months’ acquaintance. Because, in my ignorance of the wick- 
edness of human nature, and the laws controlling society, I 
believed and trusted you, braved the anger of my parents and 
the scorn of the world to make you happy, — as I foolishly 
believed I could do, — you have set me down as a weak, un- 
principled creature, who could be led away from her duty to 
you by a few complimentary sayings, and who would sacrifice 
her self-respect at the bidding of any man who chose to make 
the attempt.” 

“You are talking wildly now, Buby ! You know that you 
do not believe a w’ord you have said. I have no heart to dis- 
pute the case with you to-night. Shall we go home? ” 

The sorrowful dignity of his bearing and rejoinder silenced, 
for a minute, if it did not shame her. She had ceased to play 
the angel in the second quarter of the honeymoon. Through 
the mists of his infatuation, Louis had discerned, months ago, 
that his gem had in it many flaws, but he had never intimated 
the fact of his partial disenchantment before to-night. Perhaps 
because she had never until now spoken so recklessly. She 
had been out of temper all day — why, she could not have told, 
except that she was, in her parlance, “ nervous and fidgety.” 
Her mother had sustained the brunt of her ill-humor, which 
had not spent itself before Louis’s arrival. It was impolitic to 
quarrel with him at this juncture, when concert of action was 
imperatively demanded ; but she had tried to do it. Tried, 
and failed ignominiously, — balked by four curt sentences of 
the boy she despised because he was her thrall ! 

He tossed his cigar into the river, looked after it until it 
fizzed its last dying spark, then turned to her, and offered his 
r. :m politely — not obsequiously. She refused it by a gesture. 

“ We might meet some one else, you know, and your char- 
acter be compromised by our walking together,” she subjoined, 
spitefully. 


118 


ruby’s husband. 


His reply was to draw her hand through his arm, and retain 
it there despite her resistance. 

“ Be still, Ruby ! he ordered, calmly, as she strove to 
wrench it away, and a bitter epithet escaped her tongue. 
“ You are in a passion, and therefore insane. I shall have 
my way until you recover your senses.” 

She burst into tears of anger and humiliation, and he let 
them flow. His 'was the mastery, inasmuch as she did not 
suspect that he was as angry as herself. He would not stoop 
to refute charges which were as unjust as indelicate ; but he 
resented them to his heart’s core — resented their animus more 
than the form of the allegations. The woman who could revile 
thus coarsely the purity and sincerity of a love he never wearied 
of expressing by word and deed, could not be convinced of her 
error by arguments or oaths. She had played upon a sensitive 
chord too roughly, and the result was reaction — temporary 
revulsion ; but the incident would never be entirely forgotten. 
Such mistakes seldom are. All the tricks of erasure in which 
Cupid is an expert, can never restore the pristine freshness to 
the abused material. 

Her temper held its sullen heat until they halted at the outer 
gate of the cottage. 

“ I must say ‘ good night ’ here,” remarked Louis, noncha- 
lantly. “ I am extremely busy just now. The preparations 
for my father’s return demand all the time I can spare from my 
studies. I may not be out again in several days. Should I 
be unable to come, I will write to keep you from uneasiness. 
Present my adieus to your father and mother.” 

He kissed without embracing her, and walked away up the 
turnpike. 

Ruby, gazing after his receding form until it dwindled into a 
moving dot upon the white road, had her earliest perception of 
two startling truths : flrst, that she had married a man ; sec- 
ondly, that she had stretched her power over him to the utmost 
limit during the half year of their wedded life. He had asserted 
the authority of husbandhood, while disdaining to reply to her 


ruby’s husband. 


119 


childish railings ; conquered her, and, by his abrupt leave- 
taking, robbed her of that priceless prerogative of woman 
— the last word in a dispute. 

“ He isn’t himself to-night ! ” she said, audibly, when she 
could see the moving speck no more, and marked, in alarmed 
surprise, that he had not once looked back. “ If he should 
take it into his head to play the rascal ! But he dare not ! ” 

Another and a larger object loomed up in the moonlit dis- 
tance at the point where Louis’s figure had just before been 
visible. Upon the still night came the click of hoofs and whirr 
of wheels. A dwarfed and bushy cedar grew at the gate of the 
narrow strip of yard, and Ruby crouched behind it as she sur- 
mised who the traveller was. She saw him drive by, checking 
his horse almost to a walk in nearing the house ; caught the 
flash of his eye through the shadow of his hat, as he scanned 
the unpretending dvvelling, with its unlighted front and shabby 
surroundings ; heard the ringing “ Ha ! ” to his trotter, an- 
nouncing that his investigation of the premises was over ; and, 
raising herself again to an erect position, saw him glance a'way 
in the direction of Kroywen, like the arrow from the bow. 

“Hunting, eh?” laughed Ruby, drawing a long breath. 
“ He must have met Louis, too, and, seeing him alone, guessed 
that he had dropped me somewhere on the road. He wasn’t 
fool enough to believe that I had walked all the w^ay from 
town, whatever my amiable cavalier might have done. I can 
fancy my jealous lord’s sensations at this second encounter, and 
his trepidation lest I might be still hanging over the gate, 
staring after his adorable self, as all lovelorn wives are pic- 
tured as doing. This Veddar is undoubtedly captivafed.” 

In no wdse displeased at the imagination, she entered the 
house, and told the tale of Frederic Suydam’s death, and the 
necessity laid upon Louis to return to town that night. The 
fire had gone out in the kitchen early in the evening ; the win- 
dows and doors were supplied with mosquito-nets ; and, as a 
further precaution against the bloodthirsty marauders of the 
marsh lands, the room was blue with tobacco smoke from Nick’s 


120 


ruby’s husband. 


pipe. The lamp was unlighted, and Mrs. Sloane sat by the 
window, knitting in the moonbeams. 

Ruby’s tidings were heard with profound interest. 

“ Now comes the pinching time ! ” observed Nick, ramming 
a fresh charge into the bowl of his pipe. “ If the governor 
cuts up rough, you’ll cut up lean, Mrs. Lewis ; and what 
then ? ” 

“ And if he doesn’t cut up rough, what then, old raven ? ” 
retorted she. 

Mrs. Sloane knit on in thoughtful silence, until a few other 
sentences as refined and aflTectionate had passed between her 
companions. Then she stayed the unseemly discussion by her 
quiet, common-sense view of the emergency. 

“ Everything depends upon Louis now. If he will tell his 
story to his parents at the right moment, and in the right way, 
all will go well, I hope. His brother’s death is, in several 
respects, a fortunate thing for him. His father will be less 
likely to quarrel with one of his two remaining sons than if he 
had not lost the third so lately. He has the reputation of being 
a hard, stern man ; but this afiliction must soften him, if any- 
thing can. Then, in the joy of meeting after so long a separa- 
tion, he will be more apt to excuse or overlook a fault committed 
while he was away, than if it had happened when he was at 
home.” 

“ A fault ! I am obliged to you ! ” pouted Ruby. 

“ I spoke of the light in which Mr. Suydain might regard 
his son’s action,” replied the mother, still thoughtfully. “ My 
advice to Louis would be to sound his father carefully upon the 
subject, and if he has reason to believe that he will refuse to 
acknowledge the marriage, not to confess it until a safer opportu- 
nity presents itself. Haste and speed do not mean the same 
thing always. One false step would ruin all.” 

“ Wait ! ” echoed Ruby, dissatisfiedly. “ Haven’t I waited al- 
ready until my patience is threadbare ? Miglrty little fun have 
I seen in married life ! It is about time it was beginning' ! ” 

“ You’ve seen some money, at any rate ! ” growled Nick, 


ruby’s husband. 


121 


“ I can tell you, Mrs. Spitfire, you would a* had a plaguy 
sight different time this summer ef it hadn’t a’ been for the 
board he’s paid for you. You wouldn’t a’ had no excursions 
to the sea-shore, nor country rides, nor more’n one dress, 
where you’ve six now, and no sech gimcracks as ear-drops, 
and breas’pins, and rings. Not you ! I think I see myself 
a’ wasting ‘ tin ’ on you that style ! Give the devil his due ! 
Your spark is too stuck up, too much of a fine gentleman, to 
suit my notions ; but he’s done better by you nor you had a right 
to expect. I’ve mistrusted, sometimes, that he’s stinted himself 
to do it.” 

Mrs. Sloane turned her head quickly towards the speaker. 

“ AVhy do you think so, Nicholas? ” 

“ I sees what I sees ; and when I sees a thing, I’m like 
Paddy’s parrot — I keeps up a confounded deal of thinking,” 
rejoined Nick, complacent in his sagacity. “ He hain’t bought 
a new stitch of clothes for himself this summer. May be 
you women, who profess to know everything, hain’t noticed 
that ! He doesn’t smoke one cigar now where he used to 
smoke ten. You hain’t noticed that nuther, may be ! He 
walks out here oftener nor he rides nowadays. You’ve both 
on you noticed that, for you keep on a-worrying him with 
questions about why he does it. And you’re a couple of fools 
for believing him when he says he likes the exercise. Then, 
he sold that pointer of his’n, two months ago, when Ruby was 
ailing and cried to go to the sea-shore ; and you believed him 
agin when he said ’twas because he hadn’t time for to go 
a-huntiug. No ! it’s my opinion he finds his doll here a 
penny more expensive nor he bargained for. There’s a bot- 
tom to the purse of every young chap who lives, like him, 
upon ‘ pa ; ’ and you’re scraping his pretty close, my young 
lady ! ” 

“ I hope not ! ” said Mrs. Sloane, in a troubled voice. 

“ I don’t know who has a better right to do it,” returned 
Ruby, yawning. “ I don’t get half as mqch cash as I want. 
When I have a house of my own, you shall see how I will 


122 


ruby’s husband. 


make the shiners fly ! There is one abiding consolation in case 
the old gentleman gets obstinate. He has had one paralytic 
stroke already, and a smart, hot quarrel might bring on anoth- 
er. The third will be sure to put an end to all opposition. 
‘ Wherefore, dearly beloved, comfort one another with these 
words ’ ! ” 

Laughing, as she drawled the last sentence, with a nasal 
twang, she lighted a candle, and sailed off to bed. 


ruby’s husband. 


123 


CHAPTER IX. 

The “ Suydam House,” by which name the American home 
of John Suydam, Esq., was known throughout Krawen and 
the vicinity, was a large, old-fashioned building, partly brick, 
partly stone, situated upon one of the principal city parks. It 
was hoary with age, having been erected fifty or sixty years 
prior to Louis’s birth, and being, therefore, entitled to the — in 
our country and generation — rare distinction of antiquity. It 
looked very venerable and imposing, by contrast with the star^ 
ing smartness of the ‘‘ elegant mansions ” to the right and left 
of it, and never more stately than on the bright October morn- 
ing when, for the first time in over a year, all the shutters were 
thrown open, and every room was noisy with preparations for 
the master’s return. 

Noisy — not hilarious. The most thoughtless of the workers 
carried with him or her the recollection of the cause of this 
haste in getting the dwelling ready for the occupancy of the 
owners ; knew that the morrow, or the next day, miglit bring 
the order for the cessation of their labors, accompanying the 
intelligence that the foreign steamer was in, and the sad cortege 
on the way from the neighboring city to this ; that one of the 
former inmates of the grand old homestead would return to it 
indeed, but with eyes sealed from beholding it, and feet that 
would never press the oaken floors again. 

Louis had wandered from one apartment to another, chased by 
the melancholy demon Unrest, since eight o’clock in the morn- 
ing, giving an order here and a suggestion there, — ofteuer stop- 
ping his uneasy tramp tbrough halls and over stairs, to watch. 


124 


ruby’s husband. 


in gloomy taciturnity, the operations of scouring, removing 
and putting down carpets, but partially conscious of what he 
saw, not knowing at all whether or not it were properly done. 

“ lie takes it hard — poor young gentleman ! ” was the com- 
mon observation, when his back was turned to the speaker after 
one of these halts. 

If he did, he was not himself aware of it. He was not in 
deep grief, although his mind was very full of Fred — of his 
life more than his death. He had scarcely entered his home 
since the week of his parents’ and brother’s departure for their 
Atlantic voyage. Fred had, like himself, remained a resident 
of his father’s house after John, the eldest son, had married 
and removed to the West. Plis exuberance of animal spirits, 
his love of gayety and revellings, made him the life of the 
dwelling. The passages seemed now, to Louis’s senses, to 
reverberate with his springing step, his laugh, his voice, which, 
in his gentlest mood, had an imperious accent. As the surviv- 
ing brother entered the long parlors, he recalled, with vividness 
that well nigh deluded him into the belief that he beheld an 
apparition, Fred’s tall, lithe figure, faultlessly attired ; his pecu- 
liar gait, which was nothing like a lounge, for it was firm, while 
it was easy, — a walk which Krawen dandies tried vainly to 
acquire, — which was Fred’s, and Fred’s alone; a slide of the 
small, slender feet over the carpet, in approaching, or prome- 
nading with a lady, graceful as a minuet step, yet too far re- 
moved from effeminacy to win for him, whose natural movement 
it Avas, the reputation of a 'petit maitre. Traversing the rooms 
from end to end, and wrapped in the contemplation of the 
image thus conjured up, Louis involuntarily imitated the wxll- 
remembered motion and his brother’s carriage of the head and 
shoulders. 

“ Yes, you look jest so like him ! ” 

Coming back, with a violent start, to the actually visible 
objects about him, Louis saw a woman upon her knees in one 
corner of the front parlor. A pail beside her, and a brush in 
her hand, denoted her occupation to* have been that of scour- 


ruby’s husband. 


125 


ing the oaken wainscot ; but her face was towards him, and 
with the brush she gesticulated in the direction of a portrait 
hung between the opposite windows. She was, judging from 
her dialect, a native of Holland ; but her swarthy skin and 
piercing black eyes must have been borrowed from some Ital- 
ian ancestor. 

She showed her teeth whitely in' a smile, although there were 
tears upon her face as she repeated, “ Yes, you look jest so like 
him ! I could know you was his brodder ! ” 

Attracted by her earnest simplicity, Louis crossed over to 
her, and looked at the portrait. It represented Fred in his 
most affluent holiday mood. The artist had merely copied 
faithfully what he saw when he made him audaciously hand- 
some, proud of his beauty, and glorying in life, finding subtle 
luxury in every breath he drew, a worshipper of pleasure, and 
tasting more in one hour of his existence than many men do in 
a half century. 

“ Glorious Apollo ! ” a painter had once sighed before this 
picture ; and another corrected him in an undertone, heard only 
by the shy Louis, who chanced to be near them, “Hardly, — 
rather a Bacchus, inspired by new wine ! ” 

“ You did not know him well, or you would not say that,” 
said Louis to the Hollandaise, still gazing at the wonderful 
canvas. 

“ Not know him ! I nurse him ! I take him in me arms 
when he was a baby, jest so big as dis ! raising her hand 
about two feet from the floor. “ And he ten year old when I 
marry mine husband. He cry like leetle girl den, and he say, 
‘ Mine dear Katrine ! don’t leave me, and I marry you mine- 
self when I grow to be big man. And I give you bigger 
house,’ he say, ‘ nor Charles can ! ’ He make me cry and 
laugh togedder on me marriage-day, he did ! ” 

She did both now, wiping away the rolling tears with her 
apron, her black eyes twinkling up at Louis with a zestful en- 
joyment of her reminiscences that inclined him to follow her 
example. 


126 


ruby’s husband. 


“ Mine Charles, he keep a flower-garten, — flower and de 
vegetable, — and every birtday I use to send him ” — nodding 
at the portrait — “one beautiful great hucJcet, to show him his 
Katrine did not farget him. And t’ree time when he was a 
grown man — t’ree-and-twenty, five-and-twenty year old — he 
send me a five-dollar gold piece, and his ‘ love to his fait’ful 
Katrine ^ he write on a card. Ah ! I do tell you, Mr. Louie, 
he was a goot heart ! He no ’shamed of his Katrine cause 
she was poor. Not dat I poor now ! ” drawing herself up, and 
smoothing her apron with the back of her scrubbing-brush. “ I 
’ave one leetle farm, — a garten, a leetle green-house, two cows, 
thirty chicken, twenty duck, and t’ree childer. Gott has been 
goot to me ! He ” — pointing again at the portrait — “ come 
four time to see me, when he w^as one big boy, when he was a 
man two-and-twenty year old. He walk all over my garten, 
and smell my flower ; and I say, ‘ Mr. Frederic,’ I say, ‘ stay 
and drink tea mit me. I give you fresh milk, fresh egg, dough- 
nut, de cruller, de waffle, — a supper like a king, — if you will 
eat it in my leetle house.’ At dat he laugh, and he put his 
hand on me shoulder, like dis, and he say, ‘ My dear Katrine, 
milk is goot, de egg is goot, w^affle is goot ; but you and Charles 
will want cabbitch mit your coffee, and de smell of cabbitch 
make me faint. If I stay, I starve you and Charles, you 
see’, he say ; and den he laugh ! O, how he laugh ! Ah ! 
he was a goot heart ! ” 

She fell to scrubbing again, and Louis resumed his prom- 
enade. 

Poor Fred ! beloved in spite of his selfishness ; admired ^he 
more, perhaps, on account of his overweening satisfaction in 
himself. It enwrapped him like a luminous atmosphere, and 
all outside his home whom he met habitually, had the benefit 
of his happy complacency. In the domestic circle he was a 
tyrant ; but this recollection Louis put resolutely from him. 

He was leaving the house at six o’clock that evening, -when 
Katrine waylaid him in the hall. She was loitering near, the 
front entrance, evidently waiting to speak with him. Dropping 


ruby’s husband. 


127 


a quaint little courtesy, imported, with her accent, from the old 
world, she said, in a half Avhisper, — 

“ I come to-morrow, and de nex’ day, to know when you 
t’iuk dey bring him home. And when you tell me, I ’ave de 
flower all ready. Nobody else may bring one ; and I not 
sliarge one penny for dem all. lie was my boy. I never 
nurse anodder, only jest my own childrer ; and he seem to me 
like dem — jes’ de same. Never you be ’fraid but I bring 
beautiful flower — all right ! I please your modder, and you, 
and all — camelia, and de lily, and de tuba-rose, and orange- 
flower, — I know ! And when you see what I bring, you say 
so too. I remember all what he like best ! ” 

The emphasis of her words, and the knowing flash of her 
black eyes, being even more reassuring than her verbal decla- 
ration, that he could safely leave the business to her, Louis en- 
gaged not to concern himself about it. He refrained from 
opposing her intention to furnish the flowers gratuitously, judg- 
ing it to be wiser and more delicate to seem to indulge her for 
the time, and to remunerate her afterwards by a handsome 
present. 

“ If I were to die, who would beg, as a favor, to be allowed 
to strew my coffin with flowers ! ” he ruminated, taking the 
street leading to his lodgings, his mood inclement as the chill 
autumn wind roaring among the elms overarching the pave- 
ment. 

The question was, apparently, nearer a solution than he 
dreamed of. He had just reached the first crossing, when a 
cracking, splitting sound above his head, warned him to spring 
aside into the middle of the street, and a huge bough crashed 
through the smaller and lower branches upon the spot he had 
occupied three seconds before. Five or six persons, who were 
in sight on either side of the way, rushed to the scene of what 
had nearly been a catastrophe. 

“You had a narrow escape, sir!” said one; and another, 
recognizing him, added, in an awed tone, “ Good Heavens, 
Mr. Suydam I if it had fallen a foot farther that way, it would 
have killed you 1 ” 


128 


ruby’s husband. 

“ That is true ; but since it did not fall twelve inches nearer 
me, I am none the worse for the tumble,” returned Louis, his 
hatred of scenes inciting him to a show of unseemly levity. 
“ And by so much I have fared better than the tree. It is a 
fine old ‘ first inhabitant.’ I am sorry for the loss it has sus- 
tained.” 

He stepped over the end of the prostrate bough, and held on 
his way. 

“ The coolest young dog I ever see ! ” said a bystander, gaz- 
ing after him. 

“ Like all the Suydams ! ” interjected another. “ They are 
the devil’s own in pride and assurance. This one is the quietest 
of the tribe, but he is like gunpowder — quiet only while he’s 
let alone. ’T wouldn’t have been a great loss if that limb had 
cracked his skull.” 

The speaker, aggravated to the uncharitable comment' by 
Louis’s scornful rejoinder to his well-meant congratulations 
upon his wonderful preservation, might have modified it some- 
what, had he surmised how exactly it coincided with the “young 
dog’s” own cogitations upon the incident. 

It started another train of thought, which resulted in imme- 
diate action. On reaching his chambers, he lighted the gas, 
threw off his overcoat, and sat down to his desk to write a let- 
ter to his father. Without preamble, he divulged his marriage 
with Lubina Sloane, assuming for himself the entire onus of his 
parents’ reprobation, and bespeaking their good will for his 
innocent widow. 

“ Innocent of all except — ” 

The steady pen stopped. 

He was about to add — “ sincere and disinterested attachment 
for one so unworthy as myself.” What restrained him ? He 
was persuaded — so he would have sworn — that Ruby loved 
him, and that love alone had constrained her to marry him. 
Why, with the shadow of death still brooding over him in the 
fresh memory of the destruction he had just avoided, could he 
not write what he believed to be the unfeigned truth? Ruby 


ruby’s husband. 


129 


might well have trembled for her sceptre had she seen the 
clouds of irresolution, approximating distrust, that rolled over 
his face before the next sweep of the pen announced his de- 
cision. 

“ Innocent of aught except obedience to my urgent entreaties 
that she would become my wife. We were married on the 
fifteenth day of last March, without the knowledge or consent 
of Mr. and Mrs. Sloane. I have reason to believe that, had 
they suspected my design, they would have opposed it. You 
will see, by the enclosed copy of the certificate, who was the 
officiating clergyman, and that the ceremony was performed 
with due regard to legal and religious forms. The lady in 
question is my wife, according to every law, human and 
divine. For my share in the transaction I offer no excuse. 
You would not respect me were ,I to admit the need of apology. 
I loved her, and, being an honorable man, I married her, that 
I might visit her, without fear of compromising her reputation 
should these visits be noted by others than her parents, and 
that I might contribute, so far as my means warranted me in 
doing, to her support. She is poor ; but her character is spot- 
less as that of the highest lady in the land. I ask you to re- 
ceive her as a daughter, or, should your displeasure at an action 
you may deem precipitate, unwarrantable, imprudent on my 
part, extend to her, — the blameless participant in my offence, 
— at least to recognize her claim upon the portion of your 
estate you had designed to bestow upon myself.” 

He sealed this in an envelope with a copy of the marriage 
certificate, and a will drawn up in accordance with his best 
knowledge of the legal requirements in cases of testamentary 
disposition, and bequeathing all his personal effects to his law- 
ful wife, Rubina M. Suydam, wrote his father’s address upon 
the outside, and locked it within a secret drawer of his desk. 

“ 3ke is safe as I can make her,” he said, throwing himself 
back in his chair when all was finished. “ Perhaps it would 
be better for her, as well as for me, that the next broken branch 
should fall the foot nearer ! Yet I did mean and hope to make 
9 


130 


ruby’s husband. 


her happy. It was the dearest ambition of my lonely life. 
And I have tried.’* 

He broke off there, with a writhe of the pale lips that told 
but too plainly the story of his latest and heaviest disappoint- 
ment. 

Two days after this, Ruby received, by the hand of a special 
messenger, the following note : — 

“ My dear Ruby : I have been so busy superintending the 
arrangements for my father’s return to his house, and with my 
own removal to my old quarters there, that I have not been 
able to spare an hour, even for you, since our last meeting. I 
hoped to run down to you to-night; but I have this moment 
received a telegraphic despatch to the effect that the steamer 
by which my parents are expected is below Kroywen. I have 
just time to catch the next train. 

“ Hastily, but faithfully, 

“ Your own L.” 

“ Just as I prophesied ! ” exclaimed the young wife, tossing 
the billet into her mother’s lap. “ Now that his relatives re- 
quire his society and services, we are deserted. I should not 
be surprised if we did not catch a glimpse of him again in a 
month.” 

“ O, yes, we shall ! ” comforted Mrs. Sloane. “ You see it 
has been impossible for him to come out for several days past. 
And to-morrow will be taken up by the funeral. It would be 
very bad policy for him to displease his relations, especially at 
a time like this.” 

Ruby kept a bright lookout from the parlor window all day, 
and was rewarded for her vigilance, about three o’clock in tlie 
afternoon, by seeing a train of mourning-coaches darkening the 
turnpike. Ensconced behind the shutters, she eyed the pro- 
cession with the interest of one closely allied to the bereaved 
family. Her inspection of the carriage directly behind the 
hearse was particularly keen. The window on the side next 


ruby’s husband. 


131 


her had been lowered to admit the air, and in the dusky inte- 
rior she could perceive, on the back seat, a lady in deep black, 
and an old gentleman with silvery hair, and upon the front a 
tall, robust man, who, she rightly concluded, was John Suydam, 
Jr. Louis sat at his left. When the carriage was directly 
opposite the house, he drew out his white handkerchief, as if 
to wipe his forehead, and shook it in unfolding it. The signal 
was so adroitly executed that not one of the other occupants of 
the vehicle suspected the meaning of the motion. Had it been 
never so conspicuous, it would have escaped the observation of 
his relatives. Whatever conjectures might have been excited 
by the gesture, had they remarked it, not one would have 
coupled the destiny of a Suydam with that of an inmate of the 
mean abode at which they did not deign to glance twice. 

Louis understood this, even while he courageously flung to 
lluby the passing pledge of continued remembrance of her, and 
the bond uniting them. It answered his purpose if it quieted 
one anxious heart-beat, solaced her during one minute of his 
enforced absence. His meeting with his own family seemed to 
have put an immeasurable distance between him and the friends 
with whom he had consorted during the past eleven months. 

John’s patronizing shake of the hand, and his “ Well, Louis !” 
his mother’s rapid survey of his face, figure, and apparel, so soon 
as she had kissed him, and dried the solitary tear that dimmed 
her eye at the thought of the different circumstances in which 
they had parted ; most of all, the weight of his father’s trem- 
bling hand upon his shoulder, in their walk along the pier to 
the carriage in waiting, and the husky quaver of the voice that 
said, “ Thank Heaven, I see you again, my son ! ” were so 
many blows at the root of his independent existence and ac- 
tion. He belonged to them by every tie of consanguinity and 
early association ; and his recognition of their proprietorship in 
him, tacit though it was, had put a fearful obstacle in the way 
of his premeditated disclosure of his connection with one in a 
different walk of life. While he sat, mute and serious, by his 
elder brother, apparently absorbed in recollections of him who 


132 


ruby’s husband. 


had once made the third of their band, or replied respectfully to 
the inquiries addressed to him, now and then, by one and another 
of the quartet, his brain and heart were oppressed by one query, 
— How and when was he to tell his tale ? and What omen of a 
gracious or charitable audience had he in the aspect of the 
party before him? 

Mrs. Suydam had been, as Louis told Ruby, a beauty in her 
youth ; and the more dignified airs of the courted belle hung 
about her yet. Haggard from her sea voyage, and the sorrow 
preceding and attending it, in her severely plain travelling attire 
of black, she carried her head loftily, managed her fine black 
eyes carefully, as when a legion of followers might be slain by 
an inadvertent ray. 

One remark, uttered after a pause of considerable length, 
during which she had sighed repeatedly under the pressure of 
her meditations, was a key to the woman’s character. 

“ My dear,” she said, in subdued accents, to her husband, 
“ did you leave positive orders that our luggage should be for- 
warded by this evening’s express? I have a presentiment that 
it will not be forthcoming in season.” 

“ Mr. Carncross engaged to see it through the custom-house 
with his own, and to send it out to-night. You can depend upon 
him,” was the response. 

“ I hope so, most devoutly ! I cannot appear in public to- 
morrow unless my trunks arrive. I brought over a treasure of 
a French waiting-maid, John. I do not know how I could have 
existed without her at the time of our great afiliction. She 
went alone to Paris, purchased and had made up all my mourn- 
ing. I had absolutely no spirits or energy for the transaction 
of the simplest business. Rosette was the greatest conceivable 
comfort to me.” 

“ We were so fortunate as to meet in Florence a family of 
Americans, with whom 1 was already slightly acquainted — the 
Barrys,” said Mr. Suydam, abruptly, to his eldest son. “ We 
owe much to their kindness during the winter. They accom- 
panied us to Havre.” 


ruby’s husband. 


133 


Mrs. Suydam raised her cambric to her face to stanch the 
oozing drops from the fount of maternal woe. 

“ Ah, yes ! It is a sad, sad story, my dear son ! Poor, dear 
Fred was to have married one of the daughters — a noble, 
lovely, gifted girl ! 

Louis stared in amazement. His medical education inclined 
him to regard this design of a man ill of an incurable disease 
as absurd and wicked. The attempt to chain to what was, in 
etfect, his body of death, a youthful, healthy, loving woman, 
was sinful selfishness, unworthy even of Fred. 

Mrs. Suydam saw the affair from quite another stand-point. 

“ Their mutual devotion was beautiful,” she pursued. “ The 
darling boy breathed his last, clasping her hand in his, her 
name upon his lips.” 

“ Where is Miss Barry now?” asked John, with no remark- 
able assumption of sympathy with the actors in the mournful 
romance. 

Possibly he was thinking it a lucky thing it had not culmi- 
nated in a death-bed marriage ceremony that would have given 
the inconsolable widow a lien upon Fred’s share of the patri- 
monial estate. . 

“ At Tours. They are to go to England in May ; in Jiily to 
Germany. Mrs. Barry is extremely partial to Continental life. 
I should not be surprised if they remained abroad a year 
longer, wintering in Paris. Mrs. Barry is a genuine cosmo- 
politan. Nor do I censure her for indulging her inclinations 
in this respect. If I had my way, I should take up my perma- 
nent abode in Europe. You were abroad long enough, my dear 
John, to understand how unpleasantly American crudities im- 
press a returned traveller. There is a want of tone — or I 
might say, with more propriety, an excess of tone — about our 
very best society that oflends a refined taste cruelly. As a 
people we are 'too 'prononce^ too self-assertive, and we assert 
ourselves in a manner — to quote one of poor dear Fred’s hon- 
^^lots — that makes the rest of the civilized world declare us 
belligerents. America 'wants ripening and mellowing, he was 


134 ' 


ruby’s husband. 


fond of saying, in the playful disputes he and Frank Barry 
often had.” 

“ There you show your inconsistency ! ” interposed Mr. 
Suydam, who had been restless throughout this disquisition 
upon national unripeness. “ You pretend to admire Frank 
Barry ; yet where will you find a more thorough American ? ” 

“ I grant it, my dear ; but you cite an exceptional case. In- 
tense individuality is compatible with perfect refinement. Frank 
possesses both in an eminent degree.” 

“ And gives no better proof of intelligence, refinement, and 
good taste than by never bepraising foreign lands and customs 
at the expense of a country that is worth Europe, Asia, and 
^Africa, with the rest of the globe thrown in as a makeweight ! ” 
retorted her irritated spouse. “Louis, I shall keep you at 
home until your brain is sufi[iciently steady to carry and weigh 
two ideas at a time. One upsets the intellects of most people 
who have had a smattering of foreign travel.” 

“ Very well, sir ! I do not object ! ” replied the son, pleas- 
antly. “ I used to fancy that I should like to take a medical 
course in Paris, but I concur now in the opinion of some of our 
ablest physicians, that American constitutions and the maladies 
peculiar to the American climate are best studied on this side 
of the water.” 

“ Ghacun d son gout ! ” said Mrs. Suydam, in true French 
fashion, through her shut teeth, and shrugging her shoulders. 
“ Your tastes were never mine, Louis. I have always insisted 
that there was an amalgam of plebeianism in your composition — 
a levelling proclivity that would subvert the just order of so- 
ciety, if it were carried into general operation.” 

Louis crimsoned from a secret consciousness she was far 
from divining. His father grew purple with a different feeling. 

“ Not so effectually, madam, as the strained patrician blood 
you boast of subverts natural affection and womanly tender- 
ness ! ” he recriminated harshly. “We will have no more 
feeble reproductions of French levity and German transcen- 
dentalism, if you please ! It is villauous cant at first hand ; 


ruby’s husband. 


135 


and when adulterated by a woman’s brain and filtered through 
a pair of simpering lips, it is simply nauseous. Your wife is 
not seriously indisposed, I trust, John? You said she was not 
able to bear the journey eastward.” 

The junior relieved the paternal solicitude by representing 
the indisposition of his better half to be temporary, and not at 
all alarming, and, taking the cue from the scathing rebuke 
administered to his mother, talked at length, and with pardon- 
able animatipn, of home, wife, and children, until they entered 
the streets of Krawen, and etiquette demanded that the remain- 
der of their journey should be performed in decorous silence. 

And thus Frederic Suydam returned to the hall of his 
fathers. 


136 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER X. 

m 

“ Pa ! ” said Ruby, on the morning succeeding the arrival of 
the good steamship Minerva. “ I want you to drive me up to 
Krawen this forenoon.” 

“What’s up now?” queried- Nick, mystified by her dancing 
eyes and saucy smile, and, man-like, on his guard against an 
ambuscade that might imperil his supreme right, as a lord of 
creation, to disoblige the women attached by the law to his 
household, whenever and in whatever particular it pleased him 
so to do. 

“ I am going to my brother-in-law’s funeral, to be sure ! ” 
she replied, glowing with the fun of the idea. “ Papa-in-law 
aud mamma-in-law would be grieved to death if I failed to 
attend on this sad occasion, and my husband wouldn’t enjoy 
the exercises at all, at all, if he didn’t see my woe-begone face 
among the mourners.” 

Nick dropped the carving-knife with which he was cutting 
huge slices of ham for his breakfast, and Mrs. Sloane set down 
the coffee-pot, to gaze at their daughter. The father’s dumb 
astonishment exploded in an oath, and the mother ventured to 
expostulate. 

“ My dear ! you are not in earnest ! ” 

“ Never Avas more serious in my life ! ” Ruby went on eat- 
ing, coolly and rationally. “ I am dying to have a look at the 
interior of Castle Suydam, before I enter it as the mistress-that- 
may-possibly-be-one-of-these-fine-days, and I couldn’t have a 
better opportunity than is offered by this funeral. I take it as 
a brotherly deed in the lamented Frederic that he departed this 


ruby’s husband. 


137 

life and gave me the chance. The elite — I beg your pardon, 
pa ! you don’t like French — the big bugs of Kriiwen will be 
there in great force. I shall see innumerable handsome dresses 
and all sorts of fine birds under the fine feathers. I ought to 
become accustomed to their magnificence by degrees, that the 
introduction to the royal circle may not frighten me out of my 
wits. I shall sit with them, and they will stare at me, and I 
shall, in a lady-like way, as becomes my superior breeding, stare 
back at them, and laugh in my mourning sleeve to think how 
much harder they will look at me before long. When they 
settle into solemnity at the commencement of the services, I 
shall look more melancholy than the soberest owl of them all, 
and my blessed lord and master, weeping in the bosom of his 
aristocratic family up stairs, will be not a whit the wiser for 
my frolic, unless he should catch a stray glimpse of his divinity 
in his passage through the hall to the carriage. O, it will be 
a jolly lark ! ” 

Nick burst into a horse-laugh that made the windows rattle. 

“ Go it, my hearty ! You are a chip of the old block ! Him 
as gets the start of you has got to turn out of bed blamed early 
in the morning. You shall have your lark, and I’ll bet my 
head you’ll hold your own with the brazenest .turned-up nose 
’ristocrat there. I’ll take you up to town in good style, too. 
That goosy young Bradshaw, that’s always a-foundering his 
animals, left his big gray with me yesterday, and isn’t to send 
for his buggy till next day after to-morrow. I’ll hitch up the 
gray, — he had ought to be exercised, — and we’ll be otf soon as 
you like. lYhile you are tending the ‘ services of this solemn 
occasion,’ as I bet the parson will call ’em. I’ll knock around 
town and look after a little business of my own.” 

“ I shall go to the cemetery ; so you needn’t hurry yourself,” 
said Iluby. “ I mean to do the business up handsomely. It 
would never do to be wanting in respect to my own family, 
you know.” 

In high glee, she made her toilet, — black silk mantilla 
and dress ; a white chip hat, from the brim of which she laugh- 


138 


ruby’s husband. 


ingly removed a knot of blue velvet, as incompatible with half- 
mourning ; a black lace veil that heightened the effect of so 
much as was revealed of her exquisite complexion and pretty- 
features, and. a pair of light-gray gloves. 

‘‘ There’s notliing like being prepared for emergencies,” she 
said to her patient waiting-maid, when the interesting task was 
completed. “Tn case papa-in-law should afford his delinquent 
son a golden opportunity for confession and reconciliation and 
all that sort of thing, it would clinch the matter if I were ready 
to rush forward,’ arrayed in decorous funereal gear for my dear, 
lost brother, and cast myself upon my knees alongside of my 
beloved partner, to implore the patriarchal blessing. If I Can 
show myself to Louis by any means, it may suggest the scene 
to him. . Here ! you had better give me two handkerchiefs. I 
might find it expedient to shed tears into one.” 

“ What spirits you have, my child ! ” Mrs. Sloane ‘sighed, 
surveying the laughing face that turned from the -glass with a 
complacent nod and -smirk. “ I hope nothing will occur to mar 
the pleasure of your visit to town. If I could order events to 
suit my wishes, your entrance to Mr. Suydam’s house should 
be made in a very different manner.” 

“ Yes ! I should march in with a band of music and flags 
flying. I understand ! But I am following the advice you 
often give me. Since I can’t do as I would just yet, I mean 
to get the most good out of what I can do.” 

It was a glorious October day, bright and still. Nick pointed 
out to his daughter, in their ride over the meadows, blue heights 
upon the horizon, which Xvere, he observed, “ a good forty 
mile off.” The beautiful river on which Krawen was situated 
wound through the plain like a silver serpent, until lost to the 
eye among hills crowned with turreted villas, and groves a-blaze 
with the barbaric splendors of autumn. The marshes were 
golden-russet in the bath of sunbeams ; the misshapen willows 
bordering the turnpike looked resigned, instead of miserable, 
and the flinty road sparkled as if strewn with diamond-dust. 
Exhilarated by her ride and the fine weather. Ruby alighted 


ruby’s husband. 


139 


upon a side street, several blocks distant from her destination, 
and bade her father meet her at a designated spot at one o’clock, 
eleven being the hour appointed for the funeral. 

She walked slowly up the obscure street, shaking out her 
flounces, settling hSr hat, and drawing on the gloves she would 
not risk soiling or straining in getting in and out of the buggy. 
At the first turning, she came within sight of the park, and 
the gray-brown stone walls of the Suydam house, and her 
demeanor altered. With an air that should betray, to every 
one she met, her serious preoccupation of mind, she sailed 
along the sidewalk, her parasol depending over her veil, her 
veil overhanging her eyelids, her eyelids drooping at an angle 
which pensiveness would not begin to describe. With an added 
shade of regretful thoughtfulness, she mounted the stone steps 
and entered the open door. Several servants in mourning 
stood in the central hall, and one waved her to enter a room 
to her left. The blinds were closed, and, fresh from the bright- 
ness of the outer world. Ruby was conscious that her progress 
through the ckiaro-oscuro of the apartment to a chair she dimly 
discerned to be vacant was the reverse of imposing. She 
nearly stumbled at her trial step upon the yielding velvet car- 
pet, and, when safely seated, needed to recover breath and cool- 
ness before using her curious optics upon the company she felt, 
not saw, occupied the great parlors with her. 

True to herself, she recovered composure rapidly and began 
to make observations by the time her cheeks had regained their 
peachy hue, and her lungs ceased their irregular play. She 
had never been in another suite of rooms of equal dimensions 
and so luxuriously furnished. The carved sofas and chairs, 
with damask cushions ; the curtains, similar in material and 
color ; the grand piano ; inlaid cabinets and tables ; the tall 
china jars on the mantels, and the great vase of tinted marble, 
standing upon a pedestal in the centre of the front parlor ; the 
massive gilt frames surrounding the family portraits and paint- 
ings of various subjects that crowded the walls, — inspired her 
with a strange mixture of reverence and elation ; reverence 


140 


ruby’s husband. 


for the wealth that had created the paradise, and cunning ex- 
ultation in the reflection that, from her position upon one of the 
lower — so many lower ! — rungs of the social ladder, she had 
contrived to fasten a grapnel on this pinnacle of earthly desire. 
An incessant stream of new-comers flowed into the house, fill- 
ing drawing-rooms, library, dining-room, hall, and staircase ; 
but Ruby did not again succumb to bewilderment. She scanned 
each toilet that merited scrutiny ; made mental notes concern- 
ing the dressing of hair, the cut of mantillas, and the fabric of 
fall dress-goods ; not omitting to count the bouquets on the 
mantels, on the slabs under the mirrors, upon stands in the 
corners of the rooms, and to admire the exquisite arrangement 
of the flowers filling the great central vase — a mound of bloom 
and fragrance, with trailing vines and blossoming sprays falling 
over the lip to the base of the marble bowl. The coffin was 
heaped with flowers, also, — all white. The burial-case was 
covered with black cloth, and ornamented with silver. 

“There’s a lead coffin inside, I suppose,” thought Ruby, 
discursively. “ Louis says he was very handsome.” 

Struck by a sudden thought, she turned towards a portrait 
near the front windows. That must be Fred ! There was one 
of an older and more commonplace-looking man opposite, who 
w^as John. Louis had described him as rather plain in feature. 
The pale, slim boy, a little farther on, with a gun in his hand, 
w^as undoubtedly Louis. There was another picture of him, in 
the back parlor, taken when he was a child — long yellow curls 
streamiug over his bare shoulders, and his arm cast about the 
waist of a fairy girl, with curls and eyes matching his, and who 
could be no one else than his twin-sister Effie. 

But that portrait of handsome Frederic ! A streak of sun- 
shine shot through a crevice in the shutters, and struck boldly 
upon the face. Others besides Ruby remarked the “ singular 
coincidence,” — some people call everything they esteem note- 
worthy a coincidence, and not one in fifty knows the real mean- 
ing of the word, — and many hearts, being endowed with more 
nerves than hers, ached throbbingly as thought made the swift 


ruby’s husband. 


141 


transition from the fulness of life and beauty depicted in the 
picture, and the sealed darkness common decency had decreed 
should evermore brood over the corrupt Thing laid at length 
upon the undertaker’s trestles ; the silver breastplate telling 
when It had cast off life and comeliness together. I have 
intimated that Ruby did not vex her soul with the disagreeable 
ideas funeral scenes are apt to suggest to people of a reflective 
cast of mind. She admitted that Fred must have been a 
“ splendid fellow,” unless, as was extremely likely, the painter 
had flattered him egregiously. He had more “ dash ” in him 
than there was in Louis, or the portrait further misrepresented 
him. If he had been laid up for ten days at Meadow Cottage 
with a sore shoulder, there would have been “ a world of fun ” 
in making love to him. But then, again, men of his stamp 
were very hard to insnare — whereas Louis was verdant, which 
meant gullible. 

Shifting her seat an inch or two, she obtained a view, across 
the main hall, of the opposite room, which, she concluded, was 
the library. When she should come hither to live, she would 
choose the chamber over that, fronting the park, as hers. A 
street lookout was so lively 1 Mr. and Mrs. Suydam probably 
occupied the chambers above the parlors. There were, ap- 
parently, four large rooms upon each floor, besides one in the 
wing. What a love of a hat that young lady had on ! Chip — 
no finer and whiter than that she herself wore — trimmed with 
white strings, a cluster of small scarlet berries nestling in her 
hair under the brim, and a pure marabout feather, tipped with 
scarlet, upon the outside. She would alter her own into a 
fac-simile of the beauty before she was twenty-four hours older. 
That clergyman’s monotonous drawl was enough to put one to 
sleep, and she could hear about one word in ten, barely enough 
to apprise her when he was addressing his mortal audience and 
when reading prayers. 

He had stopped entirely. What was the matter? The 
throng within the parlor parted noiselessly to allow the passage 
of the pall-bearers, and Ruby awakened to the fact that her 


142 


ruby’s husband. 


stay in the enchanted palace was nearly over. Her “ lark ” 
was painfully short-lived. She almost dared linger where she 
was until the return of the family from the cemetery. It was 
only to sit still for an hour, and when they reentered the dwell- 
ing, to introduce herself in her real character and abide the 
storm the announcement would raise. Since it must rage 
sooner or later, why not have it now, and have done with it? 
If she were only sure what was included in that minute pro- 
noun ! Her meditated declaration of her rights ; the longing 
for domestication in the abode that had fascinated every sense 
and enkindled tastes and cravings hitherto but feebly known ; 
the wild, prankish inclination to bring about a commotion in 
the stately household, — all were overruled by the uncertainty 
enshrouding this point. A passing esclandre would be agree- 
able excitement ; a couple of dozen hard words from Suydam 
pere^ and a viragoish tirade against the meanness of her ex- 
traction, and the shameless manner in which she had duped 
her poor boy, from Suydam were, would, as Ruby sensibly put 
the case to herself, “ break no bones.” But banishment from 
the baronial mansion, and final disinheritance, were graver perils, 
and not to be lightly tempted. 

The sequel of the two minutes’ brown study, for which 
leisure was granted her by the removal of the remains to the 
hearse, and the passage of the family and their intimate friends 
down stairs, was her resolution to adhere to the original pro- 
gramme, and to preserve her incognita. When those about her 
arose to depart, she went with them to the front door. A 
pause upon the porch — in Krawen the “ stoop ” — and^rt wist- 
ful look at the nearest carriage sufficed to draw the notice of 
the polite undertaker, who was marshalling the procession. 

“Wish to go to the cemetery, ma’am?” he said, extending 
his hand to conduct her to an empty coach, just halting before 
the entrance. 

“ I believe I will,” returned Ruby, carelessly, “ there 
seem to be so many carriages.” 

The man of the mournful trade helped her to a seat ; beck- 


ruby’s husband. 


143 


oned alluringly to three other ladies, who also paused upon the 
steps ; packed them comfortably in ; banged to the door, and 
motioned to the next driver to come up. One of Euby’s fellow- 
passengers was the identical young lady whose hat had attract- 
ed her covetous regards. 

That is a providence ! Now I can study it at my leisure ! ’* 
thought the bereaved sister-in-law. 

It happened that the other occupants of the conveyance knew 
one another ; and having slyly, each for herself, inspected the 
stranger of the party, they began to chatter like magpies. If 
Ruby had been ignorant, up to this time, of the social conse- 
quence of the family she had surreptitiously entered, she would 
have been abundantly enlightened by the talk of the gossiping 
damsels. 

“They say old Mr. Suydam is terribly shaken by this .afflic- 
tion,” said one, whom the others called Hatty. “ Dr. Milnor 
told papa yesterday that he feared a second stroke. How white 
his hair has turned ! and did you observe how he tottered com- 
ing down stairs? He had to lean all his weight upon Louis’s 
arm.” 

“ I noticed and thought it so queer that he walked with his 
son, instead of with his wife,” replied the Fanny of the trio. 
“ I hope it was on account of his weakness. You know it is 
whispered that he and madame are a strictly fashionable 
couple ; that they have adopted French fashions in every- 
thing — even to having separate apartments.” 

“No?” exclaimed Hatty, interrogatively, at this delightful 
morceau of scandal. 

Whereupon the wearer of the divine bonnet, who, it seemed, 
was the volatile Fanny’s elder sister, interposed. 

“ Fanny ! you indiscreet child ! how can you circulate such 
absurd reports ? Mrs. Suydam is a most exemplary lady — a 
charming woman, against whom no one who knows her has 
ever breathed a syllable of censure. Her wealth and position 
compel her to mingle much in the gay world. It will be a 
sad loss to Krawen, now that her house must be closed to 


144 


ruby’s husband. 


general company for some months. As for her management 
of her domestic affairs, it is nobody’s business except hers how 
she conducts them.” 

“ Very true, Janet ; but people will talk, and you cannot 
deny that Mr. Suydam is a very eccentric man. Why, I have 
heard that he is so domineering and unbearable in his home, 
that his sons never dare speak in his presence, except in answer 
to his questions. That was the reason John left the city and 
went west within a month after his marriage, and why Louis 
is such a misanthrope.” 

“ A misanthrope ! A misogynist and a bear ! ” cried Hatty, 
energetically. “ He is perfectly horrid^ with his grave bow, and 
cynical smile, and ironical replies to a little harmless raillery ! 
I met him at a party a year ago, and talked with — or rather 
at him — for half an hour ; and I w’^as farther off from acquaint- 
anceship with him at the end of the tedious thirty minutes than 
when I began. He is the antipodes of poor Fred. Ah ! 
speaking of losses to Krawen society — there was the heaviest 
we have sustained in years ! ” 

“ His mantle assuredly has not fallen upon Louis,” admitted 
the discreet Janet. “ Still you had better be cautious in your 
criticisms upon the only unmarried heir to the Suydam prop- 
erty. He is a most desirable parti in a pecuniary point of 
view. Maybe you could tame him in a few more lessons, 
Hatty. The prize is worth striving for.” 

“ Pent etre ! ” rejoined Hatty, with a dubious shrug, but 
evidently not displeased at the suggestion. They do say he 
has more real talent than either of his brothers, although Fred 
was more showy. It must be so, or old Dr. Milnor would 
never take him into partnership, as he proposes to do so soon 
as he — Louis — can write himself an M. D.” 

“ That appendage to his name should signify Most Dis- 
agreeable, according to your account of his manners,” laughed 
Fanny. 

“ Yes, or Most Doleful, if one may interpret the state of his 
spirits by his physiognomy to-day,” returned Hatty. 


ruby’s husband. 


145 


“ My dear girls, don’t laugh in a mourning coach ! ” repri- 
manded their monitor, composing the visage shaded by the chip 
hat into a becoming lugubriousness. “ The people in the 
street will see you, and you be talked about all over town 
before night.” 

“You wouldn’t have us parade full-length cambrics — flags at 
half-mast, — would you, dear ? ” asked her giddy sister. “ Peo- 
ple would say then that we were heart-broken at the death of 
a man who had jilted us while alive. Fred had the most 
frightful reputation as a lady-killer. And he was a wicked 
flirt!” 

“ He was very delightful, nevertheless,” Hatty maintained. 
“ It M^ould have been quite pleasant to be jilted by such an 
adept in love-making, for jilting presupposes courtship.” 

“ That is one sin, or folly, which the sage, or cynic, — which- 
ever you please to style him, — his brother Louis, will never be 
guilty of,” said Fanny. “ He will not lose his heart to any 
one. His marriage — should he ever wed — will be a purely 
commercial transaction. And I suppose he must marry before 
long. Noblesse oblige. Bachelorhood is a prohibited luxury 
in royal families.” 

Ruby, who had with difficulty controlled her risibles, and 
affected downcast inattention to the lively conversation up to 
this time, here had to pass her handkerchief over her lips, and 
turn her face towards the window, as if attracted by some inter- 
esting object in the street. 

“ Fancy their looks, if I were to present myself to their dis- 
tinguished notice as Mrs. Louis Suydam, the wife of the royal 
bear — whom he married out of love, too ! ” she mused, glee- 
fully. “I would give a mortgage of a thousand dollars upon 
my presumptive wealth to be allowed to do it. This is the 
jolliest part of the performance thus far. Rely upon it, my 
communicative friends, I shall not forget one word of your 
pretty stories. I may even make capital of them at headquar- 
ters to punish you for your supercilious conduct to the unknown 
member of your little party.” 

10 


146 


ruby’s husband. 


In high good-humor, she alighted when the carriage stopped 
within the cemetery. It was a pleasant, sunny spot, where they 
had dug Fred’s grave, close beside a short mound, at the head 
of which 'knelt a marble child-angel, her face upturned to 
heaven, and her dimpled hands clasped in prayer. 

Ruby elbowed her way perseveringly, but not rudely, to the 
innermost circle of the crowd gathered about the enclosure, 
until she could lean upon the iron railing, and was within 
arm’s length of the Suydams. While the clergyman read the 
burial-service, she continued to make excellent use of her eyes 
through the convenient veil. Mrs. Suydam had the arm of 
her eldest son, a man nearly thirty-five years old, with a 
countenance as expressive of emotion as that of a graven im- 
age, — a hard, cold eye, and a mouth frozen into placidity a 
hundred fold more disheartening to the petitioner for love or 
mercy than the angriest scowl. The mother’s head was bowed, 
and her face concealed by her handkerchief, but she neither 
sobbed nor trembled. 

“ So ! that is grief a la mode ! ” commented Ruby. “ I am 
continually learning something I may find useful to me in my 
future career.” 

Mr. Suydam, Senior, had, it was obvious, made a grand 
rally of his forces to support him through this, the last and 
most trying scene of the series that had admitted the public as 
spectators of his domestic life. Rejecting Louis’s arm when 
they reached the open grave, he stood at his full height, no 
shaking, paralytic figure, but a man of cast-iron, too haughty 
to make sign or moan while they were lowering his son into 
his final resting-place and heaping the earth upon him. Louis, 
relieved, for the nonce, of the charge which had been his, al- 
most without intermission, since his meeting on the steamer’s 
deck, with his parents, folded his arms and gazed steadfastly 
into the fast-filling pit. Externally calm as his father and 
brother, the vestiges of severe mental suffering were apparent 
in his wan cheek and hollow eyes. A nameless fear contracted 
Ruby’s heart, impeding pulsation and chilling her with death- 


ruby’s husband. 


147 


like sickness as she watched him. Had he made the leap and 
taken a resolution typified by his position with his blood rela- 
tives upon the other side of the yawning chasm, while she 
looked vainly across it for so much as a silent token of recog- 
nition? He seemed to her to be frightfully inapproachable. 
If she was dying, she would not venture to summon him to 
her by a glance or call, fenced in as he was by conventionalities 
and social distinctions more pitiless than the iron rails she 
grasped. 

She valued him now, in the nightmare dread of losing 
him forever, and with him the ease, and plenty, and multitu- 
dinous other worldly advantages she appreciated to-day more 
truly than ever before. Representing all these to her, as he 
did, a glamour more powerful than love could ever beget for 
her, invested the motionless form. She would wait, work, 
suffer, — do anything and everything that promised ultimate 
possession, — rather than give him up. She was surveying him 
thus avariciously when he lifted his eyes and saw her ! 

Saw the eager countenance, the dilated eyes and parted lips 
on a line with the rapt face of Effie’s guardian angel, and his 
own complexion was bleached to the pallor of the marble. 
AVas he busy with thoughts of her more than with grieving 
memories of him they were burying out of his sight? and did 
he doubt the reality of her presence there? construe the sight 
he beheld into an accusing apparition, begotten of his self- 
reproach and cowardly fears ? Ruby could not have expressed 
this inquiry in words, but the thought flashed through her 
brain as Louis’s gaze returned to the earth at his feet, and 
did not again wander in her direction until the sad w^ork was 
done ; the long mound was rounded into the shape of the 
turfy hillock beside it, and John made the moveinent to quit 
the grounds. Then Louis looked straight at his wife. His 
regards were not angry or reproachful — only coldly incred- 
ulous ; and, as he offered his left arm to his father, he drew, 
wdth his right hand, his handkerchief from the breast of his 
coat, and waved it very slightly. 


148 


ruby’s husband. 


“ A cavalier salutation ! ” said Euby to herself, pacing 
back to her carriage, which was a long distance in the rear 
of the family coach. “ But better than none at all ! His 
fastidious notions were offended by my presence there — that 
was clear ! But I don’t care ! ” 

The sisters were in their places on the back seat, but 
Hatty had joined a couple of friends who had a carriage all 
to themselves ; and standing at the open door of the one in 
which she had come, engaged in animated colloquy with the 
heroine of the chip hat and her merry companion, was a 
gentleman. He stepped aside as Euby approached. He 
might have been on the watch for her, so natural were his 
obeisance and the gallantry with which he helped her into 
the vehicle. 

“We have still a vacant place, since Hatty Bruen has de- 
serted us,” said volatile Fanny, as he made a feint of shut- 
ting them in. “ You are welcome to it, Mr. Veddar.” 

“ If you will permit the intrusion ! ” he assented gratefully. 

With that he swung himself to the cushion at Euby’s side, 
and ordered the coachman to drive on. 

At this unforeseen complication of the plot, Euby very nearly 
lost her presence of mind. No surer proof of this can be 
offered than the statement that she would have mortgaged 
her expectations to the amount of several thousands more, 
could she have been spirited away to Meadow Cottage, the 
back kitchen, and her mother’s protection, before the ubiquitous 
dandy could give her a second look, or speak to her. For she 
was certain that he would accost her ; that he had seen her 
descend from this carriage, dogged her while at the grave, 
and, in some manner, contrived that Hatty should change her 
purpose of returning to town as she had come out. She was, 
undeniably, fluttered ; but she soon settled it with herself that 
she was flattered as well. If the enamoured Veddar should try 
to engage her in conversation, wherein consisted the danger 
of replying to him civilly, provided she gave him no clew to 
her name and residence ? Perhaps the little mystery that hung 


ruby’s husband. 


149 


about her was one ingredient of his fascination. She would 
have more diversion out of the adventure, before she should 
have done with it. 

“You are acquainted with these ladies — are you not?” he 
said, in an audaciously confidential “ aside ” to her, seeing 
that she took no part in their conversation. 

The rattle of the wheels upon the pavement drowned the 
question for the sisters’ ears. 

“ I am not ! ” She would have added, “ Don’t introduce 
me ! ” but he was too quick for her. 

“ Allow me,” he said, suavely, “ to make you known to 
one another. Miss Trowbridge — Miss Fanny Trowbridge — 
Miss — I beg pardon ! your name has escaped my memory ! ” 

It was an impudent stroke, but Ruby could be impudent, too. 

“ Manning ! ” she said, glibly. 

“ Ah ! I recollect ! Miss Manning ! ” 

The three ladies bowed stiffly, and exchanged dagger-glances 
of distrust and incipient aversion. 

“ This is a sore stroke to our friend Dr. Suydam,” pursued 
Veddar, comprehensively to the triad, but pointedly at his right 
hand neighbor. “ He looks badly to-day. You have accom- 
plished a feat. Miss Manning, which our Krawen ladies have 
showed themselves unwilling to undertake, or unable to carry 
through. I mean, enticing him from his idolized studies into 
the world of living society and audible music. He has the 
reputation of being a recluse in his native town.” 

“ So I understand,” said Ruby, mischievously ; whereat the 
sisters stole disconcerted looks at one another. 

“ Bravo ! ” thought the pseudo Miss Manning. “ This is 
not a bad position, after all. I hit them sooner than I ex^ 
pected.” 

“ He is a young man of fine promise,” Veddar went on to 
inform her. “ With all his reserve and seemingly unsocial dis- 
position, he has a warm heart, and more genuine chivalry 
than any other gentleman I ever met.” 

Ruby bridled in offended silence. Louis was supposed, she 


150 


ruby’s husband. 


inferred from this speech, to have testified to his chivalric 
tendencies by escorting her — an unknown stray — to places 
frequented by the ton^ who knew him for one of themselves. 

“ You are fortunate, Mr. Veddar, in having learned so much 
about the character and tastes of one who has chosen to remain 
a stranger to most of those in his own circle,” returned Fanny, 
with spirit. 

“ I consider that I am ! ” politely. “ I prognosticate great 
things from the progress of the reformation in his social habits, 
commenced under Miss Manning’s auspices. We shall see him 
a transformed man before another year has gone by. You will 
yet esteem and like him, as I do. Miss Fanny.” 

Fanny’s mouth took on a pout that would have shaped itself 
into the pronunciation of Hatty’s sarcastic “ Pent etre ! ” had 
she not been restrained by dread of “ that horrid spy of a 
woman” opposite her. Despite Veddar’s efforts to promote 
easy loquacity, the ladies had little to say after that, until the 
carriage stopped at a handsome house, a few blocks distant 
from the Suydam -Place, and the sisters Trowbridge alighted. 

“ Now I am rid of them all!” Ruby congratulated herself, 
for Veddar had sprung to the pavement to assist them out. 

But a fresh difficulty hedged her about as he reseated him- 
self, wdth a courteous — “ Where shall I tell the coachman to 
set you down ? ” 

Hesitation would be ruin. The strong sense of this gave 
Ruby an influx of effrontery. 

“ At the Water Street Depot, if you please,” she replied, 
promptly. 

“You return to Kroywen to-day, then?” he asked, after 
giving the direction to the driver. 

“ I do. In the two o’clock train, if I can catch it.” 

Veddar consulted his watch. 

“ O, very easily ! I am obliged to run over to the city my- 
self, this afternoon, and I should also like to make this train.” 

Was the man a vexatious demon? How should she extricate 
herself from the web her lies and his trickery had woven? 


ruby’s husband. 


151 


If she went to Kroywen with the design of returning to the 
rendezvous with her father in the next train, how should she 
shake off her escort after reaching the great city? For the first 
time she felt something akin to terror at the importunity with 
which he followed her up. A passing fancy for a pretty face 
wmuld not account for the pains he had already taken, and was 
disposed to increase, for the purpose of ascertaining her name 
and dwelling-place. She did not know how much an indolent 
votary of pleasure wall exert himself to secure an object that 
promises the gratification of impertinent curiosity or sensual 
desire. She was not, in the usual acceptation of the term, 
pure of thought ; but it did not occur to her that the circum- 
stances in which this man had met her with Louis, the impen- 
etrable reserve of the latter with respect to her, taken in con- 
nection with her covert smiles and affable bearing' towards one 
w'hom her attendant treated with scantest courtesy, had aroused 
in the mind of the debauchee the most damaging suspicions as 
to her character. In plain English, Veddar, with the acuteness 
and genial charity of his class, believed firmly that he was on 
the track of a disreputable intrigue, and was determined to 
ferret out the truth, incited to enact the amateur detective, 
partly by the hope of annoying and injuring a man he disliked, 
and who detested him ; partly by the design of entering the 
lists himself, and stealing the auburn-haired hour! from her 
boy lover. 

Happily, ignorant of his ulterior motives, Euby took the pre- 
dicament, as she comprehended it, bravely and coolly. She 
had great faith in her inventive genius. 

“ I never got into a scrape yet out of which my wits could 
not help me,” she reassured her dismayed spirit by asserting, 
and asserting truly. 

Arrived at the depot, she put her gloved hand into that of 
lier cavalier, who clasped it more firmly, and relinquished it 
more tardily, than he had done those of the Misses Trow’^bridge, 
and, still attended by him, entered the dingy waiting-room. 

“ If I can do no better, I will jump off the cars after they 
start ! ” she resolved, half in amusement, half in alarm. 


152 


ruby’s husband. 


“Shall I procure your ticket with mine?” inquired Veddar, 
just as she came to this determination. 

lluby’s heart gave a tremendous bound. 

“ If you will be so kind ! ” she said, smiling seductive grat- 
itude. 

The ticket office was in the adjoining room. His coat skirt 
W'as yet visible in the door of communication, when she 
slipped out of the main entrance, glided swiftly around the 
end of the building, darted up a side-street, doubled through 
a network of dirty alleys like a pursued hare, and never 
slackened in her flight until she was a good half-mile from 
the depot, and near the livery stable where her father was to 
await her with the buggy. He was there, talking “horsey” 
slang with the keeper and the admiring head groom. 

“ Halloo ! ” he hailed his daughter, as she came up to him. 
“ You are red in the face as a turkey gobbler’s comb, and puff 
like a horse with the heaves. What did you hurry so for ? ” 

“ 1 was afraid I might keep you waiting. We had better 
get off right away,” replied the panting Ruby. 

The livery stable keeper invited her to take a chair in the 
“ office,” a stuffy box seven feet by nine, that smelled of damp 
horse blankets ; but it was a welcome retreat. 

“ He will never think of looking for me here ! ” she sighed, 
sinking into one hard, wooden chair, and putting her aching 
feet upon the rounds of another. “ My ! how tired I am ! ” 

She was not gifted with extraordinary imaginative powers, 
but she occasionally perpetrated a bright remark. The foun- 
dered 'gray was making good time upon the open reach of flint- 
strewn turnpike, when she burst out laughing. 

“ Hey ! ” queried Nick, with the vacant eye of one disturbed 
in an abstruse calculation. “What now?” 

“ Nothing ! ” returned Ruby, between the paroxysms. “ I 
was just thinking luow Cinderella scampered out of the ball- 
room when the clock struck twelve, and how the prince chased 
after her, full speed, and couldn’t catch her ! ” 


ruby’s husband. 


153 


CHAPTER XI. 

Era WEN gossips had lied less infamously than gossips gen- 
erally do, in affirming that among other foreign importations 
of morals and manners into the Suydam household was the 
custom or taste assigning separate apartments to the soi-disant 
united heads of the establishment. Mrs. Suydam had her 
chambers on one side of the hall bisecting the building, her 
spouse a study and dormitory upon the other. 

After the early dinner on the day of the funeral, she retired 
to the seclusion of her boudoir, attended by the invaluable 
Rosette. John smoked his cigar in the library, in company 
with several “ particular friends,’’ who had “ dropped in ” to 
offer condolences and exchange reminiscences with their former 
townsman. Louis, at his father’s request, waited upon him in 
his study at the close of a prolonged conference between Mr. 
Suydam and the family physician. Dr. Milnor. The envied 
possessor of an ancient family name and princely wealth sat in 
the depths of an immense leathern arm-chair, brought over, 
vfamily tradition said, from Holland, by the first of the line who 
fcrossed the Atlantic. There were traces of gilding still percepti- 
ble, here and there, upon the smooth black cushions where 
they Vv^ere least worn ; and the woodwork, left exposed by the 
upholsterer, was carved into grotesque claws, wings, and heads 
of nondescript birds. This state chair had been the ^bugbear 
of the younger Suydams in their nursery days. When sum- 
moned to their father’s presence to receive chastisement, admo- 
nition, and — not the least formidable of the three — advice, 
they invariably found him enthroned in this heirloom, clothed 


154 


ruby’s husband. 


in majesty more portentous than he could have assumed in 
any modern fauteuil or causeuse. The dignity acquired from 
the embrace of leathern elbows two centuries old was pa^tent 
even to their childish senses. 

A queer thrill of the ancient awe stole over Louis, as he 
opened the door and espied his father in the old place. But 
the magistrate had laid by his official air, and the red sun- 
beams from the western window became a plaintive smile in 
resting on his white hair. He was wrapped in a wadded dress- 
ing-gown, and a fire burned in the grate. 

“ I find myself chilly, to-night,” he said, when Louis Avas 
seated. “ The east wind ^ — and there is always an east wind 
in Krawen during some portion of the day — is harsh to those 
who are not accustomed to it. I shall soon be acclimated, 
however, and enjoy better health here than anywhere else, 
for it is my native air. But, my son, I shall never again be 
the man I was three years ago. I have had my day. Had 
my day ! ” he repeated, shaking his head and chafing his right 
hand slowly wdth the left — “ and it is nearly done.” 

“ You are despondent just now, sir,” answered Louis, afiTect- 
ed by the pathetic tone, so unlike his father’s ordinary moods. 
“ You are w^eary and depressed, — mind and body acting and 
reacting upon one another until you are liable to mistake phys- 
ical prostration for mental forebodings. You will be another 
being after a night’s rest.” 

“ If I can rest ! People of my age do not sleep as do those 
of your time of life. And wakefulness with us implies thought- 
fulness. And thought is but another name for anxiety. Poor 
Frederic cost me hundreds of sleepless nights during the nine 
and twenty years he lived. He was none the better for it, and 
I am much the worse. My children have not given me credit 
for natural affection ; but if I have not lived for them, I have 
lived in vain.” 

“ They have no just cause of complaint,” rejoined Louis, 
sincerely, more and more moved by this unprecedented softness. 
“Few parents discharge their duty to their offspring so con- 


ruby’s husband. 


155 


scientiously as you have done. If we have failed to understand 
you in all respects, the fault has been mainly ours. I fear we 
have not compensated, by our filial piety, for the care and 
pains "we have cost you.” 

Mr. Suydam put his hand upon his son’s knee. 

‘‘ You are a generous-hearted lad ! I believe I was the same 
at twenty-two ; but time, the world, and matrimony play the 
deuce with heart-fibres. Depend upon it, Louis, it is a man’s 
wife who makes or mars him. Mine — well ! no matter ! She 
is your mother, and I don’t deny that I might have been a bet- 
ter husband. At all events, it is too late to remedy that evil — 
if it be one. Your future gives me more concern, now, than 
does my past or present. You were always my favorite son. 
John has acted independently of me ever since he was a school- 
boy. We talked to and felt for each other, as man does to 
man, when he was fourteen years old. He never set my au- 
thority at defiance, as Frederic did, scores of times — until, if 
I had been the tyrant report proclaims me to be, I would have 
disowned him. He might have reformed, had his life been 
spared. He was in love with a good, true woman, over there 
in Florence, and she might have been his salvation. As it is, 
more of my memories of him arc thorns than I care to tell 
even to you. John, then, chose his own way, and walked in 
it. I gave him a worthy portion when he married, and he 
never thanked me for it — took it as his inalienable right. I 
did not mind that so much as I have done the utter absence of 
cordiality in his behavior to me at all our subsequent meetings.” 

“ His temperament is phlegmatic,” Louis offered in excuse 
for his brother. “ However strongly he may feel, he lacks 
the power of expressing his emotions. We must not bear too 
hardly upon him for a constitutional defect.” 

His father was already thinking of something else. 

“ Dr. Milnor is desirous to take you into partnership,” he 
said, as if he had not heard Louis’s reply. 

“ He has intimated as much to me, several times,” responded 
the son. “ From what motive I am at a loss to guess.” 


156 


ruby’s husband. 


“ From a variety of motives, probably. He is not a philan- 
thropist, nor yet wholly selfish. He would like to do you a 
good turn, but he is the more willing to offer this because he 
needs a young partner, one whose social position holds out a 
fair prospect of a lucrative increase of his professional con- 
nection, and whose talents will reflect lustre upon his declining 
years. He says you will be a distinguished surgeon and an 
able practitioner in every department of your profession. I 
attach the more weight to his opinion, because it is founded 
upon information gained from your professors and fellow-stu- 
dents. I am unaffectedly pleased to hear this — pleased, but 
scarcely surprised. Like your brother John, I am not addicted 
to demonstrations of feeling, and I never flattered a man in my 
life. Flattery is the natural aliment of most women. But it 
may smooth some rough places in your pathway, may soften 
the sleepless pillow of your old age, if you can remember and 
repeat to your sons what your father now tells you — that you 
are the only one of his children who never added a gray hair 
to his head, nor gave his heart a pang.’’ 

Louis’s astonishment had been approaching a climax for 
some minutes, and his heart opening to the parent he had 
scarcely known as such until this hour. At this unexpected 
commendation, solemnly and aflectionately spoken, he bent his 
face upon the broad arm of the old chair and fairly sobbed. 

“ You are too good ! too kind ! O, if I only deserved all 
this ! ” 

The tremulous hand patted his head as it had not done since 
the golden curls W'ere mingled upon the same pillow with 
Eflie’s. Some long-barred door in the past swung open a little 
way, and through it Louis saw dimly the picture of the fond 
parent coming, after the toils of the day were over, to visit the 
bedside of his twin-babes, Mdien he believed them both to be 
sleeping ; and the son received as a new revelation the belief 
that he had always retained his place in the heart that cherished 
him tenderly then. This place he must forfeit ; this trust he 
must grieve ; the prideful declaration that this one of his chil- 


ruby’s husband. 


157 


dren had never deceived, or disobeyed, or otherwise failed in 
filial duty to a confiding father, would be revoked when his 
tale was told. 

The anguished consciousness extorted from him a woful 
cry, at which the old man started upon his seat. 

“Father! father! if I had knowm tliis before! known how 
entirely I might love and trust you ! ” 

“ Louis Suydam ! ” The tenderness and the tremor were 
gone from the authoritative voice. “ What is the meaning 
of this, boy? Have you disgraced the honorable name you 
bear ? Let me hear the truth ! ” 

Louis met his stern eye modestly, but firmly. 

“ I have done nothing disgraceful, father ! nothing dishonor- 
able ! I may have been imprudent, — I know I have been 
reckless, — but dishonor is a word of which I have never, for 
myself, learned the first letter. You may judge me severely 
when you hear the history of my life during your absence, 
but you will acquit me of falsehood or meanness. You may 
think that I have abused your generous confidence in my 
ability for self-government. And, before I say more on this 
head, let me remind you how young and inexperienced I 
was to be left without home or adviser — the irresponsible 
master of my actions and income.” 

His father stopped him. 

“ I will hear no more. I believed, as you have said, in 
your capacity for self-government. I have not altered that 
belief. I was persuaded that you would rebel if I placed a 
guardian over you wLile I was away. Ask yourself if your 
brother John or my lawyer would have been an acceptable 
mentor; if you would not have plunged into wilder excess 
from sheer perversity, if I had empowered either to keep watch 
upon your comings and goings, your companions and expen- 
ditures. You fancied yourself neglected and forgotten. Know 
that you were trusted instead. Know, likewise, that I ac- 
cept, without another question or reply, your assertion that 
you have been guilty of nothing base or dishonorable while 


158 


ruby’s husband. 


you were your own master. The discipline has done you 
good. You would never have grown into perfect manhood of 
thought and bearing had you remained a part of your father’s 
family. You have learned to swim alone. Few will do this 
unless forcibly cast otf by their natural tutors, or driven to 
self-support by that most wholesome of teachers, necessity. 
Frederic was a mere parasite upon the parent trunk. He 
never earned a dollar for himself, or had an original idea. I 
do not want you to creep, like a whipped child, to my knee, 
with confessions of peccadilloes, into which you have been 
betrayed by the hot blood and high spirits of youth, and the 
ownership of more money than you knew how to take care of. 

“ I have Dr. Milnor’s assurance that you have sustained an 
unblemished character in this community, where scandal-mon- 
gers by the score are always on the alert to swoop down, like 
greedy vultures, at the slightest flavor of a tainted reputation. 
There must be no confidences between us that will breed embar- 
rassment in our future intercourse. You will understand me 
better when you come to think over this talk. I was a wild 
boy myself. I should have carried a softer heart in my bosom 
since, for all mankind, if my father had visited my petty trans- 
gressions with mercy, instead of lashing my self-respect into 
frenzy by his unsparing denunciations. I smart now when 
I recollect his upbraidings, and the burning sense of injustice 
raging in my soul as I left his presence. I never forgave 
him — no! not on his death-bed — for making me feel like a 
beaten hound in the eyes of every one who looked upon me, 
for the story of our disagreement quickly took wind. I shall 
not repeat the experiment upon the only human being whose 
love I care to retain.” 

“ This is extravagance of generosity ! ” began Louis, with a 
terrible effort. The thought of losing his father’s esteem and 
provoking his wrath 'was growing more unendurable with each 
moment: each proof of the implicit faith in his honor and 
integrity he had construed into carelessness. “ I should abuse 
it, w^ere I to allow you to go on in your blind trust.” 


ruby’s husband. 


159 


“How much is it?” interrupted Mr. Suydam, pulling a por- 
table writing-desk towards him, and fumbling in it for a blank 
check. 

“ Sir?” 

“ How much will cover your debts of honor? ” 

“ I have none, sir. I never gamble.” 

“ Ah ! I did, at your age. There have been other expenses 
— other outlays, of which you think I would not approve ? ” 

“ I am afraid you would not, indeed, sir ! ” replied Louis. 
His heart beat so loud and thick as nearly to suffocate him. 

“ Will a thousand dollars straighten your affairs? If I add 
that sum annually to your bank account, will it meet your 
wishes ? ” 

“ If you will let me account to you for the manner in which 
it is spent, it will be more than sufficient to supply my every 
possible need.” 

“ You want to return to your school-boy days ! ” Mr. Suy- 
dam was growing impatient. “ If you are restrained from 
foolish expenditures solely by the fear of my displeasure, to 
whom will you account for your mismanagement of the val- 
uable property I shall bequeath to you at my death? No! 
you must discard the swimming-belts and corks, or you will 
drown when they are suddenly taken away. I want you to 
learn to manage money, for you will be a rich man in the 
course of time.” 

Here was another opening, and Louis plunged in. 

“ You may not be satisfied with the person whom I may 
choose to help me spend the wealth you give me.” 

His father filled up the check, folded it, and handed it to 
him before replying. 

“ You approach a very serious subject now.” His manner 
showed he felt what he said. “ You will not think of marry- 
ing, of course, until you are, at least, nominally established in 
your profession. You are too independent in spirit — have too 
just a sense of propriety — to ask a woman to share the fortune 
of one whose income is contingent upon his father’s whims. I 


160 


ruby’s husband. 


speak now of your position in the eye of the world — not in 
that of my family. While you are single, you are a member 
of my household, but when you talk of maintaining one of your 
own, the case is altered. Not that I would have you live a 
bachelor a day longer than is required by self-respect and com- 
mon expediency. If your first half-year’s practice should bring 
you in one fourth of your present allowance for the same period, 
I will give you a furnished house and other property, the in- 
come from which will amply justify you in bringing home a 
wife. Dr. Milnor tells me you have the reputation of a woman- 
hater. Taking it for granted, then, that my future daughter- 
in-law is not yet selected, I may impart to you my views on 
the subject. As to beauty and disposition, you must please 
yourself. With your refined taste, you would not choose an 
illiterate woman. My requisites are a good family — no vulgar 
parents or near connections — and fair standing in society. I 
have an invincible repugnance to mesalliances. They are the 
cause of one half the domestic misery one sees and hears of. 
Of this mistake but one Suydam has ever been guilty. That 
was my only brother. He married, for his second wife, a bold, 
flaunting trollop, who passed for a beauty in her set — said set 
being that to which his housekeeper belonged. Faugh ! when 
I recall that creature’s disgusting airs and fourth-rate graces, 
her petty tyrannies over her step-children, and her glozing arts 
practised upon the doting victim of her sorceries, I am ready 
to swear that I wmuld disinherit that sou of mine who should 
bring to me a wife taken from a meaner sphere than that in 
which he has been reared. In this respect, if in no other^ I 
hold that a parent has a right to be despotic, for the honor 
and reputation of his house are at stake. So, don’t be casting 
your eyes upon any ‘ maiden of low degree.’ It will not do ! ” 
“ I shall bear in mind your prohibition ! ” 

. Louis got up and sauntered to the window. The west was 
flaming with amber and crimson, and the autumnal tints of the 
trees in the quiet park were but a shade less vivid. Looking 
down into this, he saw a woman, neatly, but humbly clad, 


ruby’s husband. 


161 


sitting upon a bench under a tree ; three or four children at 
play on the grass about her, picking up and making chaplets of 
the fallen leaves. The woman had a large basket beside her, 
and ever and anon glanced up and down the avenue, as watching 
for the approach of some one. Presently there appeared at the 
lower gate of the park the figure of a man. The mother must 
have uttered an exclamation, for the children left their play, and 
ran ofif to meet the new comer. He was dressed like a mechanic, 
and bore a tin pail in his hand, which had doubtless contained 
his dinner. The foremost urchin snatched this,, as his father 
stooped to kiss him ; the next seized the coat hung over his 
arm as his share of the spoils. The third, a wee toddler, he 
picked up and set upon his shoulder, and meeting his wife half 
way down the walk, took the basket from her. Thus laden 
and thus relieved, the happy family party passed under the 
windows of the grand stone mansion, talking and laughing, the 
plain face of the wife lifted to catch her husband’s smile, each 
forgetful of the labors of the day in the sweetness of reunion 
at its close. 

“ He has a right to marry, and to proclaim his marriage ; to 
appear publicly in his true character of husband and father,” 
thought the unhappy spectator ; “ for he maintains his wife 
and children by hard, honest toil — is not the sycophantic 
beneficiary of a rich father. If I were a day laborer and 
Kuby a washerwoman, she might sit beneath the trees waiting 
for me, and no spy in the window of the great house over the 
way wag his or her tongue against it. As it is — what must 
be the end of this ? ” 

For years to come he would never be able to gaze from 
that casement into the park, in the cool, calm, and glow of 
sunset, without a return of the stricture that bound his heart 
now in snake-like folds, each tighter than the last, until respi- 
ration became agony — the efifort to repress all visible sign of 
this almost an impossibility. 

“ You are too independent in spirit ; have too just a sense of 
11 


162 


ruby’s husband. 


propriety, to ask any woman to share the fortunes of one whose 
income is dependent upon his father’s whims.” 

What had he done with independence and just judgment 
when he pressed on tlie mad marriage, that, in raising his wife 
temporarily above privation and the necessity of labor, had 
made of him a traitor or a pauper? His choice of characters 
lay between these. If he continued to conceal from his father 
his connection with the Sloanes, he was a dastard — doubly 
craven — to the wife who ought to stand upon his level in 
the sight of all mankind, and to the parent whose confidence 
in and lavish kindness to him were heaping fiery coals upon 
his shamed head. Yet if he divulged all, he exiled himself 
from that parent’s heart and home ; took the bread from the 
mouth of his wife, should she rely upon him^or a maintenance ; 
blighted his professional prospects ; stood confessed, to the 
sneering world, an ignominious failure. Thanks to Ruby’s 
incessant “ must haves,” he had not a dollar beyond his lia- 
bilities. Nick had judged correctly for once, in saying that 
he had practised rigid self-denial in his personal expenditures, 
that his wife might never apply to him for money in vain. 

“ A mad marriage ! ” Could any Bedlamite’s be madder? 

In all his self-upbraidings he stood up sturdily in defence of 
her he had described in his testamentary epistle as the “ inno- 
cent participant in his offence.” He shut his eyes determinedly 
to the array of 'vfcles memory would have recapitulated as the 
lure to what badejfair to become his ruin. 

‘‘ If I, with-^ny knowledge of my father’s prejudices and 
those of his class, w^as eager for the leap, what could be ex- 
pected of her, poor, unsophisticated child, ignorant of all codes, 
except that governing boarding-school manners and usages? 
The worst of the business is, that she must suffer acutely, let 
me move in either direction. If I could talk for one hour 
with Mrs. Sloane, I should be less in the dark. I can do 
nothing without consultation with her and Ruby.” 

“ What llias soured you against the other sex?” inquired 
Mr. Suydam, breaking the brief silence. 


euby’s husband. 


163 


“ Perhaps the circumstance that I know so few,” answered 
Louis, with a short, forced laugh. “ I don’t think I am ac- 
quainted with a dozen, all told.” 

He came back to the fireplace. 

“ The odds then are greatly against the probability that you 
know one who is worth looking at or thinking about ! ” 

Louis laughed again. “ If aversions are hereditary, it would 
seem that I have a right to my contempt for womankind in 
the abstract — if the contempt does exist.” 

“ As to that, there are exceptions,” Mr. Suydam allowed. 
“ Solomon had not found one in ten thousand, but there are 
many hundred thousands of women in the world. There was 
that American girl, in Florence, for instance — ” 

“Miss Barry?” interrogated Louis. 

“Yes — a good, upright woman, and charming in manner 
as estimable in character. Even Frederic spoke reverently 
of womanhood when he mentioned or thought of her. It 
was a mystery at first to me that they loved one another, 
they were so unlike ; but that they did, proved the existence 
of deeper mines of feeling, a truer appreciation of the beauty 
of virtue in his heart and mind, than I had ever credited him 
with before. She could not have surrendered her affections 
to an unprincipled or thoroughly selfish man. One scene is 
clearly present with me wdienever I revert to his death. He 
sank very suddenly, you know, and himself aware of his con- 
dition before we were aroused to a knowledge of his danger, 
he begged that a Protestant clergyman might be sent fbr. A 
messenger w^as despatched, but it was impossible to obtain one. 
Miss Barry was standing by- him bathing his face, — your 
mother being in hysterics in another room, — and he looked 
imploringly at her. ‘Can’t you say one word for me?’ he 
asked. Her answ^er was to kneel by his bed and pray, as I 
have never heard another mortal pray. Her voice is exqui- 
sitely clear and sw'eet, and it sounded like celestial music, as 
she besought dying strength and grace for the passing soul. I 
W'as nearer to being a Christian at that moment than I shall 


164 


ruby’s husband. 


ever be again, I fear. When she arose, the poor boy said, 
‘ Thank you ! * and closed his eyes in meditation or slumber 
for perhaps a minute. Then he opened them, — they were 
glazing fast, but he strained them to see her once more, — 
spoke her name, and expired ! ” 

Engaged as he was with other and foreign themes, this 
narrative took strong hold of Louis’s imagination. That the 
incident related had affeeted his father so powerfully was 
doubtless one reason of this. Although not what is popularly 
known as a sceptic, Mr. Suydam paid so little external regard 
to religion, as to earn for him the reputation of a Deist, or, 
as some described him, an “ utterly irreligious man.” Mrs. 
Suydam went statedly to church when she was in the humor ; 
when the weather was not too hot, too cold, too wet, or too 
dusty, and when neither the milliner nor dressmaker had disap- 
pointed her on Saturday night. But of family religion there 
was not even the poor homage of a pretence of remembering 
the Being who had given them life, and crowned each day with 
his abundant gifts. Not a prayer was breathed under the 
venerable roof-tree from the beginning to the end of the year, 
except the Ave Marias and other formulas pattered in the ser- 
vants’ rooms. That a sexagenarian, who had thus lived and 
thus ordered his household, should have been won to open 
praise of the power and beauty of the Christian faith by the 
prayer of a girl, breathed tearfully above the pillow of his 
dying son, was to Louis a curious spiritual phenomenon. 

He, too, dreamed the scene over to himself, while the red 
waves of sunlight passed from the chamber walls, and the fire 
began to shine more brightly, the wind, meantime, keeping up 
a low hum in the wide-mouthed chimney. Winter and sum- 
mer the wind was never voiceless to a silent thinker beside 
that hearth. What stories was it crooning to-night to the 
hoary-headed man who bent towards the grate, eyes intent, yet 
sad, and seemed to hearken? 

“ I like it,” he said, with characteristic bluntness. 

“ Like what, sir? ” 


ruby’s husband. 


166 

“ The song of the wind ! It has been company for me here 
many an evening, when you lads were asleep or at your les- 
sons, and madam abroad at a party. It is difficult to say 
when a man is most lonely, single or married. Should you 
never be cured of your misogynistic heresy, you will hardly be 
more solitary in your old age than he, who, with wife, children, 
and wealth, which the law adjudges to be his, yet comes back 
to his native land, after long wanderings, to find his most fa- 
miliar welcome in the friendly embrace of an antique chair, the 
smile of the fire between the bars of an old-fashioned grate, 
and the cry of the wind in the chimney.” 


166 


ruby’s husband. 


^CHAPTER XII. 

Who of us that has outlived childhood, and the dreamless 
sleep which so medicines sorrow that the morning succeeding 
a night of weeping is like an April sky, the fairer for the 
shower, — who of us that has taken up for himself the burden 
of life, has not known the horror of awakening from the mer- 
ciful oblivion that- has drowned for a few hours his sense of suf- 
fering, to find the care or the woe he fought with his latest 
conscious thought, crouched, a watchful panther at his bedside, 
ready to seize him by the throat so soon as the heavy eyes shall - 
unclose ? --Xhe strong man groans aloud at the cruel surprise, J 
and his heart. is, as was Nabal’s, water within him, as he re- 
members that this is but the prefatory onslaught of the day’s 
battle. The weak woman fiings herself back upon her pillow, 
and sobs her dismay and her longing for the everlasting 
sleep. Two hours hence, when the physical tone of the suf- 
ferer is partially restored, and, as a natural sequence, the 
nobler part of the human machine in better working order, 
the cloud will lift or be thinner. But life is, at the best, a 
terribly tame affair before the bath and breakfast ; and if it is 
near the wmrst, or even moderately out of joint, it is to the just 
unsealed optics ©ne hideous mass of disorder and hopeless 
complications. 

Louis Suydam awoke early on the morning after his oddly 
confidential talk with his father ; awoke, and feeling the pan- 
ther’s teeth in his throat, and his claws in his breast, sat up in 
vague consternation, not recollecting at once where he w^as, 
or what dreadful thing had happened over night ; awoke, at 


ruby’s husband. 


167 


length, mind and body, and turned his face to the wall with 
the moan of a frightened child who lacks courage to look his 
assailant in the eyes. 

Superadded to the wretchedness induced by the whole tenor 
of his father’s conversation, and particularly that part of it 
relative to the qualifications of his imaginary daughter-in-law, 
was the depressing thought that he had let slip the best, what 
might prove to be the only, opportunity of confession that would 
ever be vouchsafed him. By his cowardly silence he had com- 
mitted himself to an assent to the propositions laid down, and 
the deductions drawn therefrom, by his father. The sub- 
ject of his life during his parent’s absence was, hencefor- 
ward, a closed volume, not to be reopened except by violence. 
His father understood that their mutual confidence was com- 
plete ; and, having wiUidrawn his attempted protest against this 
conclusion, in what terms, or at what season, should he renew 
it? Yet, without this explanation, his intercourse with his 
relatives must be a living lie. All that was just and manly in 
his nature revolted at the idea of accepting the bountiful pro- 
vision made for his personal needs by one who would not have 
given a penny for the support of Nick Sloane’s child. On the 
other hand, if he rejected it, and gave his reasons for the re- 
fusal, he might be compelled to sue for a shelter and supper 
that night from the redoubtable farrier. His surprise at, and 
the gentle emotions awakened by, the extreme kindness of his 
father’s references to himself, and his noble leniency to what he 
catalogued as youthful follies, did not deceive Louis into the 
hope that he would retract, at his instance or entreaty, one jot 
or iota of his condemnation of mesalliances. It was a proverb 
among Mr. Suydam’s acquaintances, that h^ never revoked an 
expressed dogma. With him, as with nlbst obstinate men, 
principles were step-children, dutifully looked after ; but his 
prejudices were bantlings of his own begettifig* 

In a miserable maze as regarded his actions and his fate, 
Louis finally arose, dressed, and left his room, intending to 
tone his nerves by a morning walk. Meeting a servant upon 


1G8 


ruby’s husband. 


the stairs, he inquired for what hour breakfast had been or- 
dered. 

“ Nine, sir,” was the answer. “ Mrs. Suydam has her choc- 
olate sent to her room at half-past seven, but the family break- 
fast is nine until further orders.” 

Louis drew out his watch. It lacked a quarter of seven 
still ; and, obeying the impulse then uppermost in his mind, — • 
the single fixed idea, — namely, that he must not settle a ques- 
tion fraught with immense importance to Ruby without grant- 
ing her a voice in the decision, he took a resolution. 

“ An hour for going and returning will give me an hour 
with them,! ” 

Five minutes sufficed to bring him to a livery stable noted 
for fast hacks ; five more put the best trotter in the establish- 
ment before a light buggy, and Louis in the seat. The day 
was fine as its predecessor, but the rider saw neither blue 
heights nor silver river. 

“ He’s one as gives his whole mind to his horse, when he’s 
a-speeding him,” remarked one drover to another, as his 
beeves scattered to the right and left before the flying hoofs 
and flashing wheels. 

What thought the young man devoted to his quadruped 
ally was applied to the surest method of gaining Meadow 
Cottage in season to secure the needful interview. As to car- 
riage and gait, he let the creature make his own selection, 
provided he did not, in following the bent of his judgment, 
diminish his speed. 

Nick was in the barnyard, looking after the foundered gray 
and his invalid associates. 

“ You’ll bring^me a patient some day, if you’re not more 
careful about overheating and winding your animals,” he said, 
with a grin, feeling the reeking sides of the trotter. “ It’s 
very good in me fo tell you so, for the more horses there is 
foundered, the better for the trade. I don’t know as Ruby is 
awake yet. You’d better run in and see for yourself. She’s 
been in a terrible taking to have you come. Leave your folks 
all well?” 


ruby’s husband. 


169 


Iq rising and intense disgust, Louis mentioned that his 
horse was not to be unharnessed, as he had only an hour to 
spare ; added that his father and mother were in their ac- 
customed health, and complied with the invitation to “run 
in.” Mrs. Sloane opened the side door for him, smiling cor- 
dially, although her gaze was bj^nly anxious. 

“ I will call Ruby,” she said, going towards the hall. 

Louis stayed her. “ I will go up at once, if you please.” 

Up he went, three steps at a bound, and was met in the 
narrow passage at the top by his wife — a blue dressing-gown 
thrown on over her night-dress, her naked feet thrust into 
slippers, and her wealth of dusky-red hair rolling over her 
shoulders. 

“ My darling husband ! ” she screamed, falling upon his 
breast. “ I thought you were nev-nev-er co-co-coming again ! ” 
, with rising sobs. 

“Not so bad as that, I hope,” said Louis, affecting a rally- 
ing tone. “ I am sorry you have had such uncharitable doubts 
of me, while you have not been out of my thoughts for an hour 
of the day.” 

He sat down by the open window of her chamber, and she 
dropped upon his knee, her arm about his neck, her cheek laid 
to his. She had not often caressed him in this fashion since 
the wane of the honeymoon, and reluctant as he was to admit 
an unfavorable thought of her, he did wonder if she imagined 
he would be harder to hold to his allegiance in consequence of 
recent events. 

“ I must seem abrupt to you this morning, pet,” he inter- 
rupted her cooing to say. “ I have a story to tell, and very 
little time in which to repeat it.” 

He narrated the substance of the conversation of the pre- 
vious night, softening his father’s most stringent comments 
upon the folly of unequal marriages, but dwelling most 
strongly upon the fulness of his unmerited confidence in his 
son’s independence and honor. 

Ruby heard all with ill-dissembled mortification. This re- 


170 


ruby’s husband. 


verse of her expectations, following upon the elation of yester- 
day, was too much for her self-command. The tears flowed 
in obedience to dramatic rule at the beginning of her transport, 
but she cried like a thwarted baby before the tale was finished. 

“ So you mean to throw me over ! I always said how this 
wretched business would end ! that you were like all the rest 
of the men — false, and hollow-hearted, and mean,” she ex- 
claimed, slipping from her perch to the floor, in abandonment 
of grief. “ I wish I had never seen you ! I wish I had never 
been born ! ” 

Louis did not offer to lift her. Without leaving his chair, he 
eyed her gloomily, as she rocked herself to and fro, and be- 
wailed her evil case. 

“ And you sit there like an automaton) and never give me a 
word of comfort I ” she cried, removing her hands from her 
face, and looking up wrathfully. 

“ I have nothing to say. Ruby ! You believe the worst of 
me — so much worse than I intended my conduct to you should 
be, that I despair of clearing myself to you* When you are 
ready to listen to reason, we will confer as to the best course for 
us to pursue. While you are trying to compose yourself, I will 
go down and talk the matter over with your mother.” 

He came back in tw'enty minutes with Mrs. Sloane. Ruby 
still sat upon the floor, her head laid on a chair. She was 
crying, as if the reservoir of tears had just been tapped. Her 
mother approached her, placed herself in the chair, and took 
the bowed head into her lap. 

“ Darling ! ” she said, “ we — your husband and I — w^ant, 
above everything else, to meet your w’ishes and consult your 
true interests in all we do in this affair. I have had my fears 
that trouble such as this would arise after Mr. Suydam’s re- 
turn to this country. We have often spoken of it together, you 
recollect, so it should not find us unprepared. I sympathize 
in your sorrow, and had you been personally slighted, I should 
resent the conduct of your father-in-law more than you possibly 
could. But, consider, sweet child, that he does not even suspect 


ruby’s husband. 


171 


your existence. The question is whether it is wiser to reveal 
everything to him now, and bear the consequences, or to wait 
patiently until your husband can make his way in life, should 
his father disown him.” 

“ He shouldn’t have married me if he hadn’t meant to own 
me to his family — the purse-proud aristocrats ! How I hate 
them ! ” protested Ruby, stormily. 

“ I agree with you in your first proposition,” replied Louis. 
‘‘ Having had occasion to reiterate this several times already, 
we can dispense with further discussion of that part of the 
subject.” 

Mrs. Sloane held up a warning finger. He had made known 
to her his dilemma, and his remorseful distress at the unpleasant 
position in which his unseemly haste had placed her daiigliter, 
in such a different spirit from that he manifested in Ruby’s 
presence, that this sarcasm shocked her. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he met the reproof by saying. “ But 
my time is too precious to be wasted in sparring. Ruby, do 
you hear what I say ? ” 

He stooped, and would have taken her hand ; but she snatched 
it away with a furious sob. 

Louis continued. “ I wish you to believe one declaration of 
mine, if no more. I am perfectly willing to leave the decision 
of this question entirely to you. This is but simple justice. If, 
after hearing your mother’s statement and mine, you request me 
to publish our marriage, I will inform my father of it within the 
next hour. As to my inability to maintain you, without his assist- 
ance, I have no fear, if you have none. 1 have my health, my 
head, my hands, and there is work in this land for every strong, 
willing man. I can get a situation as a clerk, an accountant, 
a druggist’s assistant — or, if nothing better offers, obtain em- 
ployment as a day laborer.” 

Ruby shuddered and put her fingers in her ears. Louis 
gravely pulled them out before proceeding. 

“ I promise that you shall not suffer. Nor shall I complain 
to you that I have sacrificed anything in yielding to your 


172 


ruby’s husband. 


request. The error was mine. The punishment should fall 
most heavily upon me. I wish I could bear it all ! ” 

Ruby, who had listened pretty quietly for some seconds, 
recommenced sobbing grievously. The mother patted her 
head, and whispered soothingly in her ear. The whisper 
was a plea for Louis, for she broke forth in vindictive retort. 

“ I don’t care if I am hard upon him ! He ought to be 
ashamed of himself! He deserves to suffer, and I hope he 
does I lie has brought me to a pretty pass — hasn’t he ? I 
must either starve in a pigsty or be disgraced ! I didn’t 
marry a clerk, or a druggist’s apprentice, or a day laborer. 
I thought I was marrying a gentleman. It appears that I 
was mistaken I ” 

“ You were,” answered Louis, imperturbably. “ No gen- 
tleman could ever be guilty of a folly that would compel him 
to stand quietly by and hear such aspersions of his character 
and honor as I have had heaped upon me this morning.” 

Mrs. Sloane repeated her deprecating gesture. 

“ The poor child is wild with trouble I ” she pleaded. 
“ Let the question rest for one day more. When she is 
composed, she will write to you — or I will.” 

“ So be it 1 ” 

Louis bowed, turned on his heel, and quitted them. ' 

Ruby dissolved her washed eyes in a fresh torrent of grief 
when the rush and clatter upon the turnpike told them that 
he had indeed accepted the terms of probation. Simultaneously 
with this, Nick stalked into the chamber. 

“ Come, come ! It’s my turn to know what the row is. Old 
fellow up there in town balky, or has the young one got his 
heels over the traces?” 

John Suydam, Jr., set out for his western home at noon 
that day. During the morning he seized a chance to say a 
word in private to his brother. 

“ The governor is breaking up, Louis,” remarked the dutiful 
eldest hope, filliping his cigar. ‘‘The doctor hemmed and 
hawed last night when I pressed him for his candid opinion 


ruby’s husband. 


173 


of his situation. Finally, he confessed to me that the second 
stroke is a mere question of time. It may be brought on to- 
morrow by any extraordinary excitement. It may be warded 
olF for years by careful management. He thought — the doc- 
tor, I mean — that it was lucky father was in your hands. It 
is a nice thing for the patient, no doubt ; but I wouldn’t ex- 
change places with you, old fellow, for two thirds of the estate. 
It is a tremendous responsibility. One Mmuldn’t like to feel as 
if he were guilty of parricide because he happened to pass a 
sharp word with his paternal progenitor,,, and the latter was 
found speechless in his bed next morning. You are, appar- 
ently, in high favor at present. I hope everything will work 
smoothly. Only, don’t forget that our respected parent has 
a peppery temper of his own. It will not do to presume upon 
his new-born amiability. It will prove more evanescent than 
Ephraim’s goodness.” 

Father, mother, and son dined together that day, and Louis 
already had exercise for the tactics recommended by his 
brother. Mr. Suydam had more patience with everybody else 
than with his wife. Her sentimental platitudes wearied him ; 
her attempts at sprightliness were the signal for dogged gloom 
on his side ; and we have had a specimen of the toleration with 
which he treated her imitations of the jargon she had caught 
from Frenchy-German savans. As for her, she was alternately 
afraid and disdainful of him ; evincing the one phase of feel- 
ing by a martyr air of submission and profound depression of 
spirits ; the other, by a show of frivolity and bravado, unbe- 
coming a lady of any age, much less one of her mature years 
and high standing in society. 

She had a pile of letters by her plate at dinner — the epistles 
of condolence etiquette exacts from those who aspire to the 
friendship of afUicted fashionists. She read bits of nearly all — 
some entire, from address to signature — while the courses W'ere 
being removed, seasoning the most pathetic with a sigh and the 
suspicion of a tear. This she declared to be “ truly touching ; ” 
tiiat, “ feeling-fraught ; ” the majority were “ thoroughly ap- 


174 


ruby’s husband. 


preciative,” and the budget, taken en masse^ ‘‘ extremely grati- 
fying.” At the bottom of the heap was an envelope she 
scanned through her eye-glass for a half minute before re- 
marking, — 

“ Why, this is excessively odd ! ‘ Mrs. Louis Suydam ! * I 
thought everybody on this continent knew, or ought to know, 
your name, my dear ! Let me see who my forgetful corre- 
spondent is ! ” 

“ Perhaps it is Jir.,” said Lo-uis, respectfully. 

Mrs. Suydam had her finger under the flap of the cover, but 
turned it over again at this suggestion. 

“It may be. Look at it for yourself! Is that a flourish 
to the r, or is it an s ? ” 

Louis changed color very slightly when he saw the hand- 
writing. N 

“ This is for me, madam.” 

He laid it beside his plate without opening it. 

“ Isn’t that too much like a woman ? ” snarled Mr. Suydam. 
A second more, and you would have been prying into your son’s 
correspondence.” 

“ AVlio would not have been severe upon my inadvertence,” 
was the response. “ I never dared open poor dear Fred’s bil- 
lets — he had so many ladies upon his list ; but a peep into 
Louis’s missive would have revealed nothing more interesting 
tlian a scientific treatise upon the management of gunshot 
wounds, submitted for his criticism by some emulous fellow- 
student. You see he displays no impatience to master the 
contents.” 

“ I see that he is too gentlemanly to break the seal, and ex- 
amine a private letter in the presence of others, unless requested 
to do so,” said the father, irascibly. In a modified tone, he 
bade his sou “ read his letter. It might require prompt at- 
tention.” 

Thanking him for the permission, but muttering something 
about “ unimportant,” Louis unclosed his wife’s note. 

“ Precious love,” she wrote. “ Can you ever, ever forgive 


ruby’s husband. 


175 


my insane behavior of this morning? Indeed, indeed, darling, 
your poor ‘ pet ’ was nearly distracted ! Do with and for me 
as you will. I submit to your swpeno?- judgment. Only say 
that you forgive, and that you will come very, very soon to con- 
vey that forgiveness, in person, to your devoted Ruby. 

“ P. S. I will not sign myself ^ Wife,’ lest you should object 
to my continued use of the name. I am sick, weary, and lonely. 
When will you come? R.” 

Louis pocketed the billet with an expression of countenance 
so ambiguous as to attract his father’s notice and excite his 
mother’s curiosity. 

“ Not a very pleasing document, if one may judge from the 
contortion of your upper lip and the elevation of your eye- 
brows,” said the latter. “ I trust you have had no bad news !” 

“ And I trust that you will not consider yourself bound to 
account to your mother for every note you receive,” interposed 
Mr. Suydam. “ Your son is a man^ madam, free to correspond 
with whomsoever he pleases, and to come and go at his will.” 

“ Which lavSt-named privilege, I regret to say, I must plead, 
this evening,” said Louis. “ This note is to remind me of a 
conditional engagement made some time since. I was to be 
notified at what time my presence would be demanded, and this 
is the notification,” reproducing it, and eying it with apparent 
disfavor. 

An engagement ! ” Mrs. Suydam was horror-stricken. 
“ Who can be so lost to all sense of propriety and humanity as 
to invite you, on the very day after your brother’s funeral? 
Really, this surpasses all other American Gothisms I ever 
heard of ! ” 

“ Madam,” — if her lord did not say, ‘‘ You are a consum- 
mate fool,” he looked it, — “will you give this one of your 
children credit for a grain of sense — a spark of decency? I 
do not ask your charity for the besotted American public, who, 
one would imagine, to hear you talk, had all been abroad, and 
parted with what brains they began life with. For your en- 
lighteumei;t, let me explain that medical students have evening 


170 


ruby’s husband. 


engagements, into which it is not best for ladies, with exquisite 
nerves, to inquire too closely. You have heard of such things 
as ‘ subjects,’ perhaps, that do not pertain to your favorite 
subjective and objective prattle.” 

Mrs. Suydam had recourse to her smelling-bottle. 

' “I excuse you from further definition of the terra ‘ engage- 
ment,’ Dr. Suydam ! In well-bred circles it has but one 
meaning.” 

With a sigh of desperation, Mr. Suydam arose. Louis 
would have been amused by the absurd dialogue, had he not 
seen how his father’s hand trembled as he pulled himself to a 
standing posture by a tight grip of the arm of his chair. 

“ My business is not imperative,” he observed, as they passed 
into the library. “ I shall have other opportunities of being 
present at similar scenes,” — his lip curling ; “ I will gladly 
remain with you this evening.” 

“ By no means ! You are very thoughtful — very kind ! but 
I would not hamper you in the slightest degree. When you 
desire to pass an hour in my study, and can do this without 
neglecting your duties proper, I shall be happy to see you. 
But do not feel bound to devote any set portion of your day 
to me. I am used to solitude. To-night I expect a couple of 
old friends so you may set your mind at case. You have a 
pass-key — haven’t you? You will be out late, I suppose.” 

“'I think I shall.” 

Louis’s reluctance to go was augmented, not lessened, by 
his father’s hearty consent' to his absence. 

“ Exactly ! ” nodded Mr. Suydam. “ I understand the need 
of circumspection, while the vulgar prejudice against the neces- 
sary course of surgical preparation remains unaltered. We 
shall expect you to breakfast. Good night, and a successful 
evening to you ! ” 

“ Ruby was right when she accused me as a false-hearted hyp- 
ocrite ! ” thought Louis, as he stood on the pavement without 
the livery stable, awaiting the appearance of his roadster, — . 
Flyaway, the lively trotter of the morning not being the most 


ruby’s husband. 


177 


suitable companion of a night jaurney. “ I am a coward ! an 
ungrateful, lying craven ! I know that, beyond the shadow 
of a peradventure. Self-knowledge is said to be useful, but I 
doubt if one is the wiser man for realizing the certainty of his 
utter baseness. If I ever grieve that father wilfully, I ought 
to have my brains blown out — if I have any ! I have serious 
misgivings on that score when I recollect some things I have 
said and done.” 

The night was very black, and the gloom was beginning to 
spit fine rain into his face when he started. By the time he 
caught the earliest glimpse of the lighted end window of Meadow 
Cottage, this was thicker and heavier, and his hair and mus- 
tache were dripping with water the east wind had driven 
against him. 

He was expected. Between the slats of the parlor blinds 
issued streaks of light, and the kitchen windows w'ere rosy red. 
So was the door, thrown wide open at the sound of wheels, 
while Ruby’s voice w'as full of tremulous joy. 

You naughty, naughty boy ! ” she upbraided him, when 
they were together in the parlor, she again upon his knee, both 
arms around his neck. “ How could you fly off in such a 
passion this morning, at a few words spoken by your silly, 
hysterical little wife? I haven’t an idea of what I said, I am 
sure ; but mamma says I carried on shockingly, and that you' 
were very angry. I shall always maintain that it was because 
we had not breakfasted before our talk. We will be wiser 
another time — won’t we, dearest? To think how much misery 
a cup of coffee might have saved us ! Now let riie tell you 
what w’e — mamma and I, pa counting for nobody in such 
a delicate matter — have resolved upon, with your majesty’s 
permission, of course. AVe will just live on as we are, until, 
as -your favorite Micawber says, ‘something turns up.’ AVe 
are no worse.off than we were last week, — better off, for your 
income is larger. Trying as it is to me to see you so seldom, 
why, since it is for my Louis’s real good, I will submit to it. 
AA hen you are an M. H., — and remind me to tell you some- 
12 


178 


ruby’s husband. 


thing funny about that presently, — we can look a little farther 
ahead. Our sky might be much darker. We might be es- 
tranged in heart as well as separated in person. I could not 
survive that ! So, dear, think of your birdie, as singing away 
bravely in this wretched old cage. I am ashamed of it only 
when you come to see me, love. It is such a contrast to your 
home ! I was there yesterday, you know ! ” 

“ I saw you.” 

“ At the house ? ” • 

“ No — at the cemetery.” 

Something indefinable in his manner arrested Ruby’s volu- 
bility. 

“ Why shouldn’t I have gone, Louis ? ” she asked, half of- 
fended. 

“ I have found no fault with your going.” 

“ I longed so to see you, lovey ! Nothing else took me there ! ” 

Louis drew her towards him, impulsively. 

“ Dear wife, let us be sincere and true henceforward in our 
dealings with one another ! Tell me all that is in your mind, 
and I promise never to chill you by doubt or coldness. I am 
sick at heart of double-dealing and trickery. It is a new busi- 
ness to me, and I do not see where it is to end. Heaven help 
me ! ” 

Frightened by his vehemence, and the shadow that settled 
'upon his features with the last words. Ruby refrained from a 
direct reply. She smoothed his hair in all directions, pressed 
her cherry-ripe lips to his forehead, eyes, and mouth in playful 
trifling, before she offered verbal consolation. 

“ Brighter days will come ! ” she prophesied. “ Your father 
will relent, or — ” hesitating. “ He is very infirm — is he not ? 
If anything were to happen to him — ” 

“ Ruby, do not wish for my father’s death ! That is murdei* ! ” 

Instinctively, he put her from him, and stood up, pale and 
agitated, shaking back the disordered hair from his brow. 

“ Again I say, PIsaven help me ! for Heaven is my witness 
that I never dreamed into what depths of wickedness one false 
step w©n.ild conduct me ! ” 


ruby’s husband. 


179 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Another Thanksgiving day had come and gone, and upon 
the eve of still another Dr. Louis Suydam drove home at 
nightfall after a fatiguing course of country visits. 

Dr. Milnor delegated this class of duties to liis young part- 
ner in consideration of his own age, and the infirmities that 
were gradually encroaching upon his once vigorous frame and 
robust health. His patients found less fault, and manifested 
more satisfaction, at the substitution of a stranger for an old 
and distinguished practitioner, than he had foreseen. The rumor 
of Dr. Suydam’s remarkable talents had, thanks to the prestige 
of the family name and affluence, spread extensively through 
' Krawen and the adjacent townships. A difficult surgical oper- 
ation, performed, it is superfluous to say, upon a charity 
patient, had contributed marvellously to the growth of his 
infant reputation. Barely six months had elapsed since he 
received his diploma, yet he already occupied a place in the- 
public sight as a “rising man.” Krawen papers had departed 
from the straight line of reportorial and editorial comment to 
notice “ our gifted young townsman,” and his brother phy- 
sicians looked askance at him, than which no surer criterion 
of incipient popularity could be desired. His deportment was 
not that of a novice in the arena of life. The severity of his 
professional studies, said his admirers, — a disposition natu- 
rally morose, and the ascetic habits he had affected from his 
school days, said others, — had wrought in him the bearing 
and speech of dignified maturity. His mien and features were 
noble, all agreed in declaring, and his known disinclination to 


180 


ruby’s husband. 


general society caused him to be the more eagerly run after by 
fair husband-hunters and sagacious mammas, alive to the ex- 
treme eligibility of old Mr. Suydam’s favorite son. 

He kept his own equipage now — a present from his father 
on the day his name appeared upon the door-plate of Dr. Mil- 
nor’s office. He left this at the spacious stables in the rear of 
the Suydam grounds, gave his orders for the night, unlatched a 
gate in the garden wall, and entered a walk leading to the 
back portico of the house. He moved slowly — the gait of a 
man who, at every footstep, dragged a lengthening chain of 
care. As he neared the dwelling, he became suddenly aware 
that it did not wear its every-night aspect. The windows of 
both lower and upper stories were illuminated — a noteworthy 
occurrence in the left wing, wherein were situated the state 
guest chambers. The glare showed his frown of vexation as 
the n>eaning of the festive appearances was revealed by recol- 
lection of what he seldom troubled his memory to retain — to 
wit, certain sayings and doings of his mother. For the past 
week, the exemplary matron’s incessant theme in the home 
circle and parlor had been the expected visit of a party of 
friends who had sojourned abroad for nearly four years. They 
liad been in the country but a month, and she was delighted 
to announce to those of the community who had a right, by 
virtue of rank, to participate in her raptures, that there w'ere 
strong grounds for hope that they would take up their per- 
manent abode in Krawen. As a preliminary favor to the 
liighly honored city, “ dear Mrs. Barry ” had consented to 
spend a couple of months under her roof, her cherished guest. 

The power of abstraction had always been Louis’s to a re- 
markable, and, as he now considered, an enviable extent. 
When his mother began to “ talk Barry,” he raised tiie draw- 
bridge commanding the citadel of thought, and remained undis- 
puted master of the fortress until signals from without denoted 
that matters more interesting had been broached. 

“ Those confounded cosmopolitans ! ” he muttered, savagely, 
standing still in the path, with more than half a mind to beat 


ruby’s husband. 


181 


a retreat until some hours of domestication had rubbed off tlie 
gloss of their reception. “ However, it must come, sooner or 
later ! ” he then said, in forcible bitterness. “ I may as well 
make myself presentable, and get the thing over.” 

“ Dinner has not been served yet, sir,” said the footman 
who answered his bell, when the necessary changes in his 
toilet were made. “ Mrs. Suydam ordered it to be put back 
two hours, that the ladies might be rested before coming down.” 

The ladies ! Is not Mr. Barry here, too? ” 

“ No, sir — only Mrs. and Miss Barry. They arrived at four 
o’clock.” 

“Very well! You can go, Tom. So!” he added to him- 
self, “ the incomparable Frank is not of the party ! There is 
genuine comfort in that ! he would have been my especial care. 
I have endured, uselessly, the anguish of picturing myself as 
the cicerone of the travelled youngster. I heard my mother 
mention twenty-two as his age. He must be a dilettante of the 
first water after his European experience. As to the girl — 
she ought to be wearing the willow still for poor Fred, and not 
require the services of an escort to above two parties per week.” 

He halted without the door of the drawing-room to listen 
for the hum of tongues. All was silent. The apartment -was 
brilliantly lighted, and he was still within the portal when he 
discovered that it was not untenanted, as he had believed. 
Directly beneath the chandelier in the front parlor, engaged in 
pleased contemplation of the flowers in the marble basin that 
liad captivated Kuby’s fancy, was a young lady. She wore a 
black silk dress ; she was about an inch below the medium 
height of well-developed womanhood ; her hair was short and 
wavy, like a boy’s ; she had pleasant gray eyes and a bright face. 

Thus much Louis saw ere she took a step forward — the 
initiative rupture of their strangerhood which his surprised 
pause hindered him from making. 

“We should not need a formal introduction,” she said, in a 
sweet, thrilling voice. “ I have often heard your parents and 
brother speak of you, if you are, as I suppose. Dr. Suydam. 


182 


ruby’s husband. 


You may have heard, through the same medium, the name of 
Frank Barry.” 

“ It is one of our household words,” rejoined Louis, with 
grim pleasantry. “ As is also yours. Miss Barry,” bowing. 

The young lady looked puzzled. 

“ I fear that we do not quite understand each other yet. I 
am Frank — not Sue. My sister is in New Orleans. We 
have relatives there.” 

To this lucid statement Louis returned first a stare, then a 
laugh. 

“ I have made an awkward blunder, indeed ! I thought, 
until this instant, that you were — ” 

“Francis, instead of the owner of the sister prasnomen,” fin- 
ished Miss Barry, joining in his merriment. “ The mistake is 
a frequent one. I hope we shall be as good friends as if I were 
my own brother.” 

It was easy to tell how she had earned a name that sat upon 
her as no other could have done, thought Louis, scanning her 
open, fearless visage, when she had turned the conversation 
upon the beauty and variety of the fiowers. Direct and simple 
as a child’s, her manner interested him at once from its very 
dissimilarity to that of any other woman he had ever seen. 

“ When I came into this room a while ago, I found a black- 
eyed Ilollandaise arranging these,” she said, touching the per- 
fumed petals with the tip of her finger, the lingering caress of 
a true flower-lover. “ She was profuse in apologies for her 
delay in bringing the flowers, but ,upon my comforting her by 
representing that we should be the gainers by her accidental 
detention, since even freshly-cut blossoms soon lose their richest 
aroma in the atmosphere of a heated parlor, she became delight- 
fully communicative. The result of our ten minutes’ conver- 
sation was an invitation to visit her. And I mean to go very 
soon.” 

“ Ah ! mein goot Katrine, as her husband names her in 
every third breath ! ” answered Louis. “She is an ancient 
retainer of our family.” 


ruby’s husband. 


183 


“ She told me she nursed your brother.” The full gray eyes 
wandered — no! went straight to Fred’s portrait. “She des- 
canted, moreover, upon your resemblance to him, which I do 
not see. She interested me greatly. Your Krawen roses are 
very beautiful. There is one variety here with which I am 
not familiar.” 

Louis knew the name, and supplied it. 

They were still standing by the vase, and talking over the 
contents, when the lady of the mansion appeared, ushering in 
her other guest. 

The famous Mrs. Barry was a faded little woman, with a 
round pink spot upon each cheek, an inimitable French cap set 
upon the back of her head, and a fan in her hand. Louis 
noticed the latter appendage to her dress as unnecessary upon 
a November evening, even in a house where the temperature 
was uniform and bland as was that of the Suydams. lie had 
yet to learn that without it she was no more Mrs. Barry than 
was Madame De Stael, Corinne, in summer without her green 
twig, and in winter her twisted allumette. Whether or not 
the ancient coquette had, in youth, conned the manual of the 
fan exercise, as described by the witty Spectator, it is certain 
she had brought it as nearly to perfection as had the drill-ser- 
geant, whose promised treatise upon the “ Passions of the Fan ” 
is now, unhappily for the students of the interesting art, out 
of print. The wardrobe of the transatlantic lady boasted not 
only a fan to match every dress, but, satirical paupers in such 
w'ealth asserted; one to suit every shade of emotion. Her robe, 
this evening, was black silk, richer in gimp and lace than her 
daughter’s ; and after acknowledging the introduction to Louis 
by a deep reverence, and laying within his hand the tips of 
three gloved fingers, she weaved tow^ards him a fan of black 
scented wood, tufted with W’hite feathers and spangled with 
silver dots. 

“ There is melancholy pleasure in this reunion, my dear Dr. 
Suydam,” she said in accents the gallants of her bellehood 
had compared to sighing zephyrs, but which had, through over- 


184 


ruby’s husband. 


much practice and the asthmatic tendencies of advancing years, 
degenerated into a wheezing whisper. “ Your dear mother and 
I have tasted much sorrow and the many joys in company. I 
am charmed to find her so well — enchanted — yes ! enraptured 
to observe that her magnificent constitution and her perennial 
flow of spirits have not succumbed to the crushing ” — squeez- 
ing both palms together, the closed fan between them, and 
bearing very hard upon the word at the same moment — “ the 
crushing pressure of an affliction the most ineffable. And your- 
self, Dr. Suydam — how vividly you bring to the memory the 
speaking image of your deplored brother ! True, I see not his 
dark hair and the exact contour of features ; but there is a re- 
semblance that appeals, with every glance, to a heart that still 
cherishes his remembrance.” 

She sank into a lounging chair, and, unfurling her fan, mo- 
tioned him to a neighboring divan. Internally anathematizing 
her as the most ridiculous compound of folly and affectation he 
had ever beheld, he obeyed the regal gesture, and submitted to 
boredom, for the fifteen minutes that intervened from the mo- 
ment of her entrance until dinner was announced. 

A French word rarely passed Mrs. Barry’s lips in the society 
of those who were supposed to be comparatively unlearned in a 
tongue which had, she gave everybody to understand, become 
more natural to her usage than her real vernacular. Mrs. Suy- 
dam took refuge continually in the supple language from the 
“ crudities and coarseness of English — the speech of boors and 
ruffians, and incapable of exjjressing the subtler phases of pas- 
sion and feeling.” Mrs. Barry, by refraining punctiliously from 
such lapses, expressed ingeniously and effectually her thorough 
Gallicism. The structure of her sentences reminded one of 
a school-giiTs literal translation of Pasquelle’s or Choquet’s 
phrases, and testified that, M’hile she numbered the Anglican 
dialect upon her list of acquired languages, she thought in 
French. Nor did she, in word, join with Mrs. Suydam in her 
unfavorable judgment of America and Americans. A genuiuG 
Parisienue is too polite to carp openly at the toilet of a Hot- 


ruby’s husband. 


185 


tentot, or the banquet of a cannibal. But by her elaborate 
apologies for the barbarisms that met her enlightened eyes at 
every turn, and her overstrained praises of whatever was to 
the aforesaid optics worthy of commendation, she contrived to 
cast more odium upon the land and the semi-civilized inhabit- 
ants than did her bosom friend’s incessant fault-finding. 

Mr. Suydam entered the drawing-room during her monologue 
to his son, who was not too much absorbed by the quality of 
his entertainment to overlook the marked cordiality of his 
father’s manner to the younger lady. He seated himself be- 
side her upon the sofa, and engaged her forthwith in a merry 
play of badinage — a renewal of the kindly-familiar intercourse 
of other days that betokened mutual esteem and enjoyment in 
the association. He gave his arm to her when they were sum- 
moned to dinner, and motioned to Louis to precede them with 
Mrs. Barry. 

“ She might have stepped off the lid of a Louis Sixteenth 
snufif-box ! ” was Dr. Suydam’s graphic description to himself 
of the figure that returned a sweeping salam to his bow, as 
he offered his arm, and laid the same three gloved fingers upon 
his coat-sleeve, her long train trailing over the carpet, and her 
fan executing a solemn movement indicative of respect for her 
attendant and the family feast to which she was bidden. 

“ We cannot offer you souipe aux grenouilles and Jilets en pa- 
pillote” said the host to Miss Barry, when he had placed her 
at his left hand. “ You must starve in this unhappy country 
upon plain roast and boiled.” 

“ The process of starvation will be pleasant, if it is to be 
achieved by such means,” she rejoined, gayly. “ I am flattered 
that you recollect my fondness for French cookery.” 

“ I find the American cookery quite to my taste,” Mrs. Barry 
hastened to say. “ I remember wdien it w^as frightful : when, 
so long as one had an abundance of the provisions upon his 
plate, it signified nothing how they were prepared. Now, I 
suffer seldom with the hunger. • I can, almost always, secure 
sufficient that is tolerable to satisfy the cry of Nature for the. 


18G 


ruby’s husband. 


sustenance, and for the rest we are assured that the mortifica- 
tion of the body is for the good of the soul. One says that the 
abstinence makes spiritual, ethereal, celestial. My dear Frank 
there has the happiness of a good appetite — the appetite of youth 
and a sound health. Not that my health is feeble. Far from 
it. I am entirely well ; altogether as it should be — but one is 
fastidious as one grows older. Is it not so,* my friend? ” to 
Mrs. Suydam. 

“ You are right, my dear. I look back with amazement to 
the zest with which I enjoyed the soi-disant good things of 
twenty years ago,” said that lady, ingenuously. “ I ask myself, 
Can I be the same person who ate what I pleased, without fear 
of unstrung nerves or beclouded brain ; who slept six, seven, 
eight hours at night, and awoke refreshed in the morning? 
Now, the slightest fault in the preparation of my favorite dish 
deprives me of appetite ; a trifling contretemps occurring at the 
season for my meal has the same effect, and should the like 
befall me near nightfall, although it may appear to others the 
veriest nothing, I should not close my eyes before three or four 
o’clock in the morning.” 

Mrs. Barry had laid down her soup-spoon and taken up her 
fan in an agitated flutter. Around the pink spots on her cheeks 
were rings of a different shade of red, for which she was not 
indebted to cosmetics. Her eyes were lively — triumphant. 

“ Ah, well, my child,” she cried, nodding at her daughter, 
“ what say you now to the pretty history you have heard from 
our dear Mrs. Suydam? to the unrest and the nausea, and the 
megrims and the palpitations and the terrors of the black night ? 
I will tell you, Mrs. Suydam. Ah ! assure yourself. Miss Barry, 
that I shall not conceal from Mr, Suydam, who so praises your 
‘ common sense,’ — I shall divulge to him even that you are 
one grand coward ! She will have it that I shall consult a 
pliysician because I sleep not so well as herself ; that I have 
the dreams which make me to cry out affrighted and start upon 
my pillow ; that the visions of the past will not let the eyes to 
shut for hours and hours. ‘ My little one,’ I say, it is nothing ! 


ruby's husband. 


187 


Have no fear ! It is the sorrow common to lliose who have 
known the years and the care. I do not murmur ! Why 
should your dreams be the less sweet because mine are sad? 
Taste the wine of life, my dear, and leave the lees for the 
beverage of those from whose road the sunshine of early morn- 
ing has vanished, to return — never ! never ! ’’ 

This, airily, with a gesture of adieu over her shoulder to the 
departed sunshine, performed with the fan partly furled. 

“ It is the noonday and the afternoon sunshine that imparts 
most of warmth and blessing,” replied Frank, with exceeding 
gentleness. “ If I had restless nights, I know who would be 
most ready to advise medical aid. Judge me by yourself, 
mother.” 

She said “ mother” in a way that developed to Louis’s com- 
prehension a depth and richness of meaning in the word he had 
never until now suspected. Nothing could have been further 
removed from theatrical effect than her manner at all times, 
and no studied acting could be so impressive, when she was 
earnest in talk, as her simple diction. There was a slight, a 
very slight pause before pronouncing her mother’s name, and 
a downward inflection of the voice as meaning something dear 
and sacred. The tender respectfulness of her address invested 
the embodiment of artificiality and pretension opposite him with 
something like dignity. 

She gives you excellent advice, mon amie” said Mrs. 
Suydam. “ A system so finely attuned to the perception of the 
discords as well as the harmonies of our present state requires 
frequent adjustment and the extremest care. A single broken 
or frayed string will mar the effect of the whole.” 

“You should drink lager bier, Mrs. Barry,” Mr. Suydam 
was driven by this last? speech to suggest. “ Your nervous sys- 
tem needs toning. My son here will tell you that, in nine cases 
out of ten, of neuralgia and general debility, a judicious tonic 
is worth more than all the drugs in the materia medica.” 

“ Mother disapproves of drugs,” observed Frank. “ So do 
I. Are we rank heretics, Dr. Suydam?” 


188 


euby’s husband. 


“ If I were an apothecary, I should say, ‘ Yos.’ As it is my 
duty to prescribe, not administer remedies, I may confess that 
I agree with you in part.” 

. “ You must make an exception in favor of my invaluable 
valerian,” said Mrs. Suydam. “ I owe many nights’ rest to 
this precious sedative.” 

“What is it that it is?” questioned Mrs. Barry, intensely 
French in her bewilderment at the strange name. “Valeria! 
It has a pleasing sound. It makes one to remember the matron 
of Rome who saved the city — was it not? She who was the 
wife — or is it that she w^as the mother of Coriolanus ? ” 

“Valerian/” emphasized Mrs. Suydam. “You must posi- 
tively allow me to send a potion to your room, this very night, 
by Rosette. It is Heaven’s best blessing to suffering woman- 
kind. I would not part with my knowledge of its beneficent 
ministry for a dukedom.” 

“ Has it the^ad taste?” queried Mrs. Barry, naively. 

“ It may be a little unpalatable at first, although Rosette 
has a recipe of her own for mixing it, disguising the taste with 
a few drops of orange-flower water, — likewise a soothing 
agent, — adding a teaspoonful of lemon-juice, a little sugar, and 
making all very cold with ice-water.” 

“ Ah ! the incomparable Rosette ! Did I tell you, dear 
friend, of the shock I sustained at the exact instant of embar- 
kation, from the conduct the most traitorous of Mathilde? 
The ingrate informed me, with composure the most heartless, 
that she desired to marry Philippe, our courier, — also an in- 
grate, — and that he forbade her voyage to the barbarous Amer- 
ica ! I was desolate for ten days, and her place I can never 
supply — never I never ! ” 

Frank was perfectly silent, and so grave as to draw Louis’s 
notice to her downcast eyes and compressed lips. There was 
a faint glow upon her forehead, too, that told her equanimity 
W'as disturbed. 

“ She is ashamed of the painted old parroquet ! ” thought 
the young man. “ I honor her for the feeling.” 


RUBY^S HUSBAND. 


189 


He was helped to a better understanding of the source of 
her disquiet by a discovery made on their passage back to the 
parlor. 

“ What a charming house ! ” commented Mrs. Barry, pinch- 
ing his arm in subdued rapture. “ A veritable antique ! and 
more rich in the associations, I doubt not, than a modern 
abode.” 

She raised her face towards his in speaking, and a puff of 
air, stirred by the restless fan, brought a familiar odor to his 
nostrils — familiar and peculiar — the close, pungent smell of 
valerian ! 

She had a right to use it if she liked. Hundreds of other 
women did it, and gloried in their acquaintance with the virtues 
of the marvellous restorative to worn and weak nerves. His 
mother had acknowledged her dependence upon it, and recom- 
mended it to her visitor. What whim was this feigned igno- 
rance of the name and properties of the sedative ? It was this 
pettiness of deceit that had called the flush of honest mortifica- 
tion to her daughter’s face. Was the trivial incident a clew to 
the characters of both? 

“ To-morrow is Thanksgiving day — isn’t it?” said Frank to 
Mr. Suydam, stopping again at the great, shallow chalice, with 
its prodigal wealth of flowers, and burying her face in the per- 
fumed mass. 

“ It is. I accept your arrival as an auspicious omen for the 
year to come.” 

“ Thank you ! I trust it is a promise of rest and home to 
us, too. We have not had a Thanksgiving in five years.” 

“ It was my intention to celebrate the day and your coming 
by a large party, but Mr. Suydam fancied, for reasons best 
known to himself, that you would be better pleased if this were 
postponed a week or two.” 

Mrs. Suydam stated succinctly a difference of opinion, that 
had culminated in a hot matrimonial dispute. 

“ You-' are both very kind. I shall enjoy the family gather- 
ing, I am sure, however pleasant your projected party might 
have been.” 


190 


euby’s husband. 


% ^ 

Frank never stooped to flatter, yet rarely offended those with 
whom she did not agree in sentiment. With all her indepen- 
dence of thought and action she was a true lady, and guarded 
the feelings of others as she did her self-respect. 

“ Our family gathering will not deserve the appellation, I 
•fear ! ” sighed Mrs. Suydam. “ John, my eldest son, lives too 
far away to be with us upon these time-honored anniversaries ; 
and I do not even know that Louis will dine at home,” turning 
to him. 

He looked disconcerted, Frank thought, but she was not 
versed in the variations of his countenance. He answered 
tranquilly and politely, — 

“ If I can, I will, certainly, mother. My time is not my 
own, you know.” 

“ These professional men are never at a loss for excuses,” 
Mrs. Suydam said, smiling faintly at her dear friend. 

The fan described a conciliatory curve. 

“Ah, then! what would you, my dear heart? Certainly 
not that the people should not perceive the abilities of our 
young doctor, and vie with one another to profit by them ? But 
will they be sick — ill at ease — upon a holiday ? What droll, 
taste ! Truly, the American is a unique. And he, without 
doubt, enjoys his method of making merry.” 

“ I rarely interfere with your professional engagements, 
Louis,” said Mr. Suydam. “ But I sincerely hope, we shall 
see you at dinner to-morrow. Choose your own hour. The 
rest of us can conform our unimportant arrangements to what- 
ever time you may select.” 

Louis plucked the ends of his mustache in thoughtfulness 
that was perturbed rather than dubious. 

“ I cannot be in until late in the afternoon, sir. It Avill not 
be best to wait for me. My design is to eat my Tlianksgiving 
dinner at home. As a preliminary measure to securing this 
end, I will now excuse myself, and go to see what programme 
Hr. Milnor has sketched for to-morrow’s operations.” 

“I congratulate you, dear friend,” said Mrs. Barry, tap- 


ruby’s husband. 


191 


piDg her hostess’s wrist with the furled fan, by the time the 
door closed upon Louis. “ Your sou has the distinguished air, 
and in his face there is the intellect, the great intellect ! His 
presence is noble, his conversation fascinating. You should be 
the happy mother ! ” 

Mr. Suydam, his aversion to her more appeased than he would 
have owned by this tribute to the one he loved best of living 
beings, wheeled forward a chair for her occupancy, and Frank 
set a footstool before it. 

“ My child ! ” — the hurried breeze from the black sticks and 
white feathers blowing the girl’s hair over her face as she 
stooped to perform the daughterly office, — “ do you account 
me as one infirm or lame? I find Mr. Suydam’s arm-chair ail 
I could desire.” 

“ I thought you might be tired, mother. My feet are often 
weary after a day in the cars. Sitting in one position so long 
cramps them.” 

“ I am not tired — not at all. You should knotv that I have 
the wonderful constitution, the spirit, if not the body, of a young 
woman, Mr. Suydam.” 

Frank went to the window, pulled back the curtain, and stood 
gazing across the lighted street toward the dark park, watch- 
ing, apparently, the elm branches, that, catching the lamp-light 
upon the nether side of each bough, made a ghostly network 
against the pitchy sky. 

Louis saw her there, her figure strangely distinct upon the 
brilliant background of the illuminated rooms, and lifted his 
hat as he crossed her shadow on the pavement. 

She did not change her attitude ; had evidently not observed 
him. She was looking upward. 


192 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

There had been much talk during the past year of the 
Sloanes’ removal to a residence more befitting their improved 
circumstances than the weather-beaten cottage on the marshes. 
Had the matter rested entirely with Ruby and her father, the 
change would have taken place long ago. 

Nick had set his manly affections upon a “ snug box ” among 
the range of hills known as the Lemmon Mountains, lying to 
the south-west of Krawen. There was a nice paddock, already 
enclosed, for the galled, halt, and foundered animals ; ” 
roomy stables, and a trotting-park within a stone’s throw of 
the outer fence. What more could vaulting ambition covet 
in the home of a retired gentleman living upon his son-in-law’s 
money? Ruby had no objection to the designated locality, or 
to the dwelling. It was more than respectable. There was a 
flavor of “ style ” in the peaked gables with their fretted mould- 
ings, and the engirdling piazza. Within doors, there were two 
parlors, a dining and sitting room, and four chambers above. 
She could be tolerably contented there while she continued to 
grovel as a caterpillar, she said flippantly to her husband and 
mother. 

Louis replied merely, “ I will take the house if you wish it.” 

Mrs. Sloane objected. The rent was high — preposterous 
for people of their means. Dr. Suydam might support his 
wife in whatever style he pleased, when he could take her to 
his home. While she remained an inmate of her father’s 
house, he might pay her board and clothe her — nothing more. 

“ I, for one, will never consent to live upon your charity,” 


ruby’s husband. 


193 


she declared bravely — how bravely, Louis could not know 
unless he had gone behind the scenes that night, and for many 
days thereafter, and heard how she was badgered by daughter 
and husband. 

She stood her ground — an example of successful resistance 
noteworthy for its rarity, where the opposing force was Ruby. 
Her point carried, she redoubled her efforts to reconcile the 
malcontent darling to her condition. Day by day, almost hour 
by hour, she represented to her that the period of her exile from 
her lawful abode was growing shorter ; that the next week, 
the very morrow, might bring the welcome summons, and what 
matter then whether it found them domiciled in the villa on the 
hillside or in despised Meadow Cottage? She put Nick’s surly 
protest down with a list of undeniable figures, demonstrating 
that the rent, furnishment, and cost of housekeeping in the 
villa would consume every dollar of Dr. Suydam’s income, in 
addition to their scanty means. 

“ And leave nothing for your dress and travelling expenses, 
Ruby,” she threw in, parenthetically.' 

And when Ruby had done storming and crying, and wishing 
she had died without ever setting an eye upon one of the Suy- 
dams, she perceived, although she never openly recognized, the 
force of the interpolation. She adored fine clothes, and had a 
passion for travelling. Determined, since she must live like a 
water-rat in the miserable old hut, that she would seize upon 
whatever compensation chance afforded, she, in the January suc- 
ceeding the return of the Suydams to America, angled success- 
fully for an invitation from a school-fellow, mLosb home was in 
Savannah, and informed Louis, at his next visit, of her intention 
to accept it. He raised no obstacle, thereby piquing her into 
the declaration that she believed he was glad to be rid of her. 

“ Perhaps you would like me to stay away altogether ! ” she 
said, snappishly. 

“ You think no such thing,” rejoined the philosophical hus- 
band, taking out his pocket-book. “There are two hundred 
dollars for your outfit. If you want more, let me know.” 

13 


194 


ruby’s husband. 


She did let him know in the course of a fortnight, for she 
was a fellow-sufferer with Miss Flora McFlimsey, according 
to her showing. 

“ I haven’t a decent thing left over from last winter,” she 
told him ; and since she was going — maybe for the only time 
in her life ! — into fashionable society, she hated to appear 
shabby. 

Louis’s reply was to empty his pocket-book silently into her 
lap. 

“ Thank you ! ” she said, her eyes shining, as she unfolded 
one bank-bill after another. “ You are a kind fellow, Louis ! 
Yet” — struck by his taciturnity — “you don’t enjoy giving 
me things as you used to before we were married. Then I did 
you a favor by accepting your presents. Now I have to ask 
for what I want.” 

“ I do not mean to be illiberal or ungracious,” he returned, 
a pained look crossing his face. “ I aim to supply your wants 
whenever I can anticipate them.” 

He never intimated to her then, or subsequently, that her 
requisitions upon his purse were excessive and unkind. He 
owed her all the consolation he could render her by any means, 
for her situation was a trying one to a sensitive, ambitious 
woman, and her disappointment at the necessity for the con- 
tinued concealment of their marriage was poignant. Men who 
proudly presented their wives to their friends and the world, 
and installed them honored mistresses of their homes, might 
exact affection and obedience in return for love and protection 
and handsome provision for their needs and fancies. He had 
so defrauded this poor girl that she ow^ed him nothing, while 
all he had belonged to her. 

She sailed for Savannah with three trunks full of elegant 
clothing about the middle of January, and did not return until 
the last week in April. Her letters 'were crowded with descrip- 
tions of balls, concerts, and beaux, and in one she recounted 
gleefully to her husband a proposal of marriage she had received 
from a wealthy Georgian planter. 


ruby’s husband. 


195 


“ I suppose it was hardly dutiful in me to decide so important 
an affair without consultation with my laivfal guardian” she 
went on to say. “ I was tempted to take the subject into con- 
sideration until I could write to you and get your views of it ; 
but I thought it best, on the whole, to decline, with thanks.” 

Louis smiled in sad disdain over this passage. He had had 
reason, before this, to discredit the tale of Mr. Stainsly’s ad- 
dresses, by which he had been goaded over the precipice of a 
secret marriage, and he disbelieved this also. Wealthy south- 
ern planters were not in the habit of throwing themselves at the 
feet of portionless girls belonging to obscure families. The 
subterfuges and equivocations in which he had detected his 
pretty Ruby since they twain were made one flesh had engen- 
dered rankling distrust of her principles and assertions. 

He tore the letter into bits, aiM fed his office fire with them, 
and in his reply made no reference whatever to her clever 
romance. 

He was glad to see her when she came home, and reasonably 
devoted, as husbands generally are after a union of eight or 
nine years* standing ; but Ruby reproached him with coldness 
and neglect. 

“ You are weaned from me ! ’* she sobbed. “ You will begin 
to hate me soon ! If you want a divorce, I will help you 
get it. I will swear that I inveigled you into this scrape by 
false pretences ; that I cared no more for you then than you 
do for me now.” 

“You cannot provoke me to a quarrel,” answered Louis, 
wearily. “ As to the divorce, it is not I who bring a complaint. 
The application should come from you. But this is idle, foolish 
talk ! Does it not seem to you, dear, that we have enough real 
unhappiness without inventing chimeras with which to torment 
ourselves? Let us be reasonable, and help each other to bear 
hopefully and bravely the evils incident to our situation, nor 
mar the few pleasures that remain for us to enjoy.’* 

“ You are getting so stupid and sensible ! ” pouted Ruby. 
“ So like an old married man of sixty-five ! I declare, you look 
ten years older than when I went away ! ” 


196 


euby’s husband. 


A pause, Louis did not seem inclined to interrupt. 

“ There it is ! ” she continued fretfully. “ I stopped on pur- 
pose to let you say that you had been pining for me. I staid 
twice as long in Savannah as I meant to, in order to arouse 
some longing in your heart to have me again with you, and you 
are as stolid as a piece of marble ! ” 

“ I wrote that I longed to see you,” responded Louis, pa- 
tiently. “ I thought it would be unkind and selfish to urge 
your return when you were having so delightful a holiday. I 
shall be much happier now you are here, provided always that 
I can make you happy.” 

“ O, dear ! ” Ruby yawned. “ How tame all this protesta- 
tion, furnished to order, sounds in comparison with the fine and 
fervent sayings I have been fed upon for two months ! There 
is but one drawback to the deffght of my visit. Pauline is to 
spend three or four weeks at Saratoga this year, and will ex- 
pect to visit me. Her coming here is not to be thought of. I 
would drown myself in the nearest ditch if there was any danger 
of such a mishap. I have represented to her that we never 
stay at home in the warm weather on account of the ague and 
fever prevalent hereabouts. But I promised to meet her some- 
where. Saratoga is awfully expensive, but there are scores of 
farm-houses among the Kaatskill’s where ma and I could board 
for a month, and Pauline could come to me there. What do 
you think of the plan ? I never like to take any important step 
W'ithout consulting you, dear pet.” 

A declaration eminently flattering to her auditor, when he 
bethought himself that her going at all was contingent upon 
the supply of funds she should receive from the “ dear pet’s ” 
pocket. 

For three whole months, including the term of his engage- 
ment and honeymoon, Louis Suydam had sojourned in a fool’s 
paradise : but being, in reality, the antipodes of a fool, he saw 
no reason why he should play the simpleton after he recovered 
his senses. Recover them he did, with alarming rapidity, when 
one remembers that the process of disillusion strongly resembles 


/ 


euby’s husband. 


19T 


the sobering of the inebriate. If the intoxication passes otf 
too suddenly, disastrous effects may ensue. Louis had a strong 
brain and sound judgment when not obfuscated by the fumes 
of that most powerful of sorceries — a first passion. His reason 
survived the shock of disenchantment, and what was more won- 
derful, his love lived through the ordeal. Pity and conscience 
held it up between them, and brought it out of the fiery trial, 
not dead, yet far from unharmed. His eyes were unsealed to 
the poverty of his wife’s heart and the narrowness of her mind ; 
but since it had been his blindness that had misled him into 
the persuasion of her angelhood, and inasmuch as believing her 
to be worthy he had worshipped her, traces of the ancient ten- 
derness lingered still about his heart. 

Ruby was his ! There lay the charm. Faulty, it might be, to 
absolute unworthiness, if critically inspected, with tastes and 
aims totally dissimilar to his, frivolous, hot-tempered, self- 
wdlled, and artful, he saw all this in her, but he had made 
her his wife ; had built a palace for her in his affections, and, 
so help him Heaven ! it should be hers while he drew the breath 
of life ! Take her at her worst, — and that was bad enough, — • 
admit the supposition that she had designedly duped him into 
this alliance, that she had wedded him for a home and posi- 
tion, — he said still to the stern umpires. Conscience and 
Honor, that she had wronged him less foully than he had her. 
If she, in her chagrin of her foiled ambition and thwarted 
hopes, held to the letter of her vow to him, he would not for- 
sake her. He would seek by kindness and persuasive arts to 
win her to higher views than the paltry trifles that filled the 
horizon of her desires, and develop her into nobler womanhood. 
If he failed, she was still the creature he had loved and married. 
His mind, after all his imaginings, fears, hopes, and plans, swung 
back to that sure pivot. As to his past conduct to her he had 
more than misgivings. He knew that youthful blood and ill- 
regulated affections had carried it with a high hand over true 
manliness and rectitude. His had been a weakness, his repent- 
ance for which had in it a throb of shame more galling than 


198 


ruby’s husband. 


remorse. He was harassed by incessant doubts as to the 
justice and honesty of bis present course of concealment, im- 
perative as the necessity of its adoption bad seemed at the 
outset. But setting aside this one point, he could be in no 
uncertainty touching the treatment Ruby should receive from 
him. 

He was not a good man. He had erred too often and too 
deeply to merit that title. We have seen his nerve fail him 
when his need of moral courage was most stringent. Yet, the 
crisis over, and the consciousness that he had been inadequate 
to it bowing him to the dust of sorrowful humility, he rallied 
his powers to w'restle with the new and startling convolutions 
of his unfortunate entanglement, took up his burden of life, by 
so much the heavier for his past irresolution and timidity, and 
carried it without a moan or sign of pain, excepting such as 
skilful readers of human nature descried in the steadiness and 
gravity foreign to his age and sex as frost and sear leaves to 
June. “ The annealing-furnace has been at work upon his 
character,” they said, and their discoveries rested there. 

Ruby saw about as much of all this as if she had been born 
deaf and blind. Her matrimonial speculation had not brought 
her the quick and abundant returns she had counted upon ; but 
it had not been a fruitless investment. She had money enough 
to gratify all reasonable and many unreasonable cravings, a 
husband indulgent to her slightest wish, yet who was “ not 
around forever under foot,” she felicitated herself more than 
once in her mother’s hearing. 

“ I shall 
leaving me 

nuisance when we are obliged to live together all the time. If 
we had a decent house, and I could go out and receive company, 
I shouldn’t care how long the old man lasted. It would be a 
gloriously independent life.” 

The summer excursion was settled upon. Nick staid at 
home to keep house and superintend certain alterations Ruby 
had insisted upon, if they “ were to spend another month in 
the crazy old cabin.” 


get so spoiled by Louis s being away so much, and 


at liberty to do as I like, that I shall find him 




a i 


ruby’s husband. 


199 


“ I seldom set my foot down ; but when I do, I mean some- 
thing ! she said to her lord, with an imperious stamp of the 
member named, and an angry snap of the mobile eyelids. “ I 
shan’t cross the threshold again until it is painted inside and 
out, etc., etc.-,” enumerating the capabilities of the dwelling 
for becoming “ less intolerable.” “I may have to stay here ten 
years yet, for aught I can see ahead. I have surely a right to 
petition that my cage shall be cleaned once in a half century.” 

With respect to his father-in-law, Louis and complaisance 
were estranged for that season. He made his appearance at 
the cottage the day after Ruby’s flight to the mountains, and 
told Nick roundly what sum he would allow for the projected 
improvements, and that the bills were to be supervised by him- 
self before payment. 

“ Do you insinuate that I mean to cheat you?” blustered the 
farrier, thus balked in divers pleasant schemes he had nursed 
from the moment he had heard he was to have the handling of 
funds not justly his own. 

“ I insinuate nothing ! ” replied the other. “ I merely state 
what I can afford to do, and I will not go beyond my means 
in this affair.” 

Again Ruby’s absence transcended the limits she had origi- 
nally set for it. She received her school friend at her farm- 
house lodgings in July ; accepted her father’s invitation to travel 
with them through the White JVIountains in August, and 
chancing to stumble upon another school-fellow at the Craw- 
ford House, played her cards so well as to elicit a third oppor- 
tune invitation. Her ne^v hostess lived in Boston, and the 
beautiful Miss Sloane was a toast during September and the 
earlier weeks of October, in the second or third rate circles of 
that city. 

She had been installed for three weeks and more in her reno- 
vated apartments when Louis drove down from the city to par- 
take of their Thanksgiving dinner. His greeting to his wife 
was a kiss and the presentation of a basket of bonbons. She 
munched comfits and chocolate drops like a gluttonous three- 


200 


ruby’s husband. 


year old, and Louis kept her lavishly supplied with confec- 
tionery. She was very handsome to-day, and richly attired 
in a dress she called upon him to admire before he had shaken 
hands with her mother. 

“ Vous me trouvez charmante^ riest-ce pas f ’’ she said, dip- 
ping him the deepest of stage courtesies. 

“ More charming if you had put your question in English,’* 
he smiled, and gave her a brief sketch of Mrs. Barry. “ You 
may imagine that I am surfeited with French — language, 
manners, and all.” 

“ But their wardrobes are splendid — aren’t they ? ” cried Ruby, 
breathlessly. “ They must have all the latest Parisian fashions. 
O, if you would only use your eyes as I would mine, were I 
in your place, you could give me some capital hints about my 
winter dresses. I have worn everything I have threadbare.” 

“ The more reason you should stay at home for a while ! ” 
growled her father. 

Ruby interrupted hini incontinently. 

“ There, you be quiet ! I want to hear more about these 
Paris ladies, Louis,” walking with him into the parlor. 

“ The mother is a bundle of French affectations and millinery, 
you say ! ” she continued, when they were seated. “ What is 
the daughter like ? ” 

“ Not like her mother, assuredly. She is a pleasant, bright- 
faced little thing, with short hair. She wore a black silk last 
night, and a deep crimson peignoir at breakfast this morning. 
I cannot describe her more minutely.” 

“ Short hair ! Isn’t she grown? ” 

“ She is twenty-two. She had an attack of fever a few 
months since, and her hair was cut off during her illness.” 

“ She was engaged to your brother — wasn’t she ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I dare say she will console herself by setting her cap at 
you ! ” — laughing. “ Wouldn’t it be a No. 1 joke ? ” 

“ I do not see the humor of the idea. Nor does Miss Barry 
look like a flirt.” 


ruby’s husband. 


201 


“ I’ll wager my head she is one of them ! ” persisted Euby. 
“ I hope she will try her hand on you. I grant you license to 
humor her to the top of her bent. I have had my fun in that 
line, and don’t grudge you a touch of the same sort. There is 
a world of mischievous delight in listening to a tale of love, 
and making fresh conquests, when one knows all the time that 
she is ‘ selling ’ her adorer. Did I tell you that I booked 
another offer in Boston? A No. 1 chance, too!” 

They were sitting side by side, and Louis, without shaking 
off the arm she laid over his shoulder, changed his position so 
as to face her. 

“ ‘ A No. 1 chance ! ’ Where did you learn so much slang, 
Ruby? You never used to talk such stuff! ” 

He spoke coldly, almost severely, nettled more by the coarse- 
ness of her sentiments than by their dress. 

“ I always talked it, more or less, behind your back, for I 
knew how ultra squeamish you were. But in Boston every- 
body is slangy, and I like it. It gives a flavor to one’s con- 
versation.” 

“ So does garlic to one’s breath ! ” retorted Louis. “ I am 
afraid your pet phrase could not be applied to your Boston 
society.” 

Ruby’s arm dropped to her side. 

“It was infinitely superior to any to which Dr. Suydam has 
introduced me ! ” she said, with stinging scorn. “ With your 
highness’s permission I will leave the room until you recover 
your lost temper. I have been out of the habit lately of hear- 
ing insulting language, and it annoys me more than it formerly 

dil” 

He caught both her wrists, and made her resume her seat. 
His eye was fierce, his voice hard and dissonant. 

“ If this were the first time I had listened to the taunt that 
I had not presented you openly as my wife, I might ascribe it 
to pardonable anger on your part at a reproof you thought 
harsh. But I have been assailed with it upon every conceivable 
pretext, in season and out of season, until I will bear it no 


202 


ruby’s husband. 


longer. T have now been in practice six months, and I can 
form a tolerably correct estimate of what my yearly income 
will be. We can live upon it, plainly, but comfortably, and I 
mean to try the experiment. I came down to you, to-day, 
intending to tell you this, and of my determination to right 
you in the sight of the world. You have hurried on the decla- 
ration, but my resolution was not born of your sneer. It was 
already taken. I shall tell my father everything to-night. To- 
morrow, Dr. Suydam — not John Suydam’s son — but a free 
man, responsible only to his conscience and his Maker for his 
actions — will introduce you to whatever society will receive 
him.V 

Ruby was not enchanted by the intelligence. Her color faded 
into the blanched hue of dread or distress. 

“ IIow much have you made in six months? ’’ she inquired. 

He named the sum. 

“ Good gracious ! ” Her eyes dilated now with real alarm. 
“ You’ve given me as much as that for my dress, first and last, 
since March ! ” 

“ I know it. Our style of living must conform to our means 
hereafter. It was this thought that made me look grave when 
you spoke of needing an entirely new supply of clothing. I 
hope our circumstances will improve with time, although I will 
not conceal from you my fear that I may, for a season, feel, in 
my diminished practice, the popular displeasure at my discred- 
itable conduct in not publishing my marriage. But what of 
that? If a man offends against social laws, he must bear the 
brunt of social indignation. I am weary of this miserable fraud 
upon my parents and acquaintances. I long to breathe purer 
air ; to stand forth from beneath the cloud that has overshad- 
owed me for eighteen months, at peace with myself, in the proud 
consciousness that I have done right. I shall have the approval 
of my own conscience, if I incur the maledictions of everybody 
else.” 

“ Don’t see it ! ” blurted out Ruby. 

She bore a mortifying resemblance to her father in her bus- 


ruby’s husband. 


203 


band’s eyes, as she crossed her trim gaiters upon an ottoman, 
somewhat higher than most ladies would have selected as a foot- 
stool, and throwing herself back upon the sofa, gazed up at him 
with her wide, bold eyes. 

“ I don’t see the point of your observation. What are you 
raving about? Just as I am beginning to be contented in my 
home, and satisfied to await the development of events, you 
are set upon ruining us both. You will be sorry for your 
deed within ten minutes after it is done, instead of enjoying 
the approval of conscience and all that fal-lal. Your father 
will disinherit you to a dead certainty, and if he cuts you, 
the rest of Krawen will follow suit. I know the ways ^f the 
W'orld too well to let you sacrifice yourself, to say nothing of 
me. As to righting me — that’s rank humbug ! I’ve had a 
jolly time this summer. Nobody besides ourselves is the wdser 
for the certificate I have locked away safely — I won’t say 
where ; for so sure as you carry out your suicidal plan. I’ll 
tear it up, and swear I was never married to you at all ! ” 

Louis’s forehead was dark ,with swollen veins ; but he com- 
manded himself to say, still in that hoarse, deep tone, “ Don’t 
threaten me, Ruby ! There are other proofs of our marriage 
than the certificate, and I will produce them.” 

“ Do it ! ” A mocking smile shot over the fair, brazen face. 
“When you succeed in convincing people that you are a Bene- 
dick, without the cooperation of my parents or myself, I shall 
be surprised — that’s all ! Perhaps you didn’t see the notice 
of Dr. James’s death in the Kroywen papers last mouth. I 
did ! As to the two witnesses, they w'ere evidently servants, 
who would never see your advertisement, if you were to ad- 
vertise for them. Don’t threaten we, Louis Suydam ! This 
is my little game, and I w^ou’t have it spoiled by you or any 
other man. lam hei-e. Ruby Sloane — without the"* evidence 
of the certificate — and Ruby Sloaue I shall remain until your 
lather dies, or you make a fortune — whichever event Fate 
decrees shall happen first. Let me call your attention to an- 
other objection to your expose — I should say, your heroic self- 


204 


ruby’s husband. 


sacrifice. The princely income you named, just now, will 
hardly support us in affluence, and allow me to help my parents. 
I shall not leave them unprovided for in their old age. There 
will be no room for them in the establishment you contemplate 
as our residence. They can only stay here and starve. My 
filial piety cannot sustain the imagination.’’ 

She wagged the uppermost foot, the heel being poised upon 
the toe of the lower, and sat silent, cool, insolent. 

Louis’s glance passed meaningly from the neat carpet to the 
papered walls and tasteful furniture, then settled upon the 
elegantly-attired figure on the sofa. 

“ They are better off than they were two years ago. I have 
not played the niggard to you or to them.” 

“ You are generous to remind me of your benefactions I I 
dare say there are dozens of men in your aristocratic set 
who lavish twice as much per annum upon ladies wh6 have 
no .legal claim upon their pockets.” 

“ Lubina Sloane ! ” 

“ Suydam — at your service — until the aforesaid certificate 
is destroyed ! But I interrupt you ! ” 

“ If I thought,” — Louis forced down wrath and scorn that 
he might articulate distinctly, — “if I thought that a spark of 
womanly modesty remained in your bosom, I would make you 
ashamed of the inference deducible from your last observation. 
Suffice it to say that the comparison between yourself and the 
class to which you refer is of your making — not mine. Let 
us end this contemptible farce, this childish bickering. As I 
have said, I stand prepared and resolved to do you ample jus- 
tice. If you reject my proposal, the responsibility is yours.” 

“ I agree.” 

“ First, hear me through ! I offer you a home, recognition 
by the world as my honored wife, and my constant care of 
your person and interests. I am moved to this by no Quixotic 
impulse, no strained principle of self-devotion, but a firm, calm 
sense of duty — duty to myself, as to you. In some respects I 
am a wiser man than when I married you. I am not ambitious 


ruby’s husband. 


205 


to defy public opinion. I respect the verdict of the world more 
than I did then. But neither do I shrink from its reprobation 
in the pusillanimous spirit some display. The penalty of my 
error must be paid, and I shall not be satisfied until this is done. 
I have strength to bear obloquy and privation, and I vow here, 
solemnly as I did at the altar, to love and cherish you through 
all ; to shield you from discomfort and pain so far as human 
power can, until the storm blows over. For it will pass ! Inno- 
cence of real guilt, and a stanch will, can live down any amount 
of evil report. After the whirlwind of gossip has subsided, 
people will begin to see things with more charitable, or just 
eyes. The prospect is uot frightful after all, you see ! V 

He smiled — a forced gleam that showed more plainly the dark 
veins upon his pale forehead and the tight muscles ridged about 
the mouth. Any one except a heartless woman would have 
framed a careful reply to words so noble in their forbearance 
and willingness to meet for himself the sharpest thrusts Fate 
might have in reserve as punishment for his boyish folly. 

“ I am blind, I suppose,” rejoined Ruby, slightingly. “ But 
may I be delivered from ever beholding another one tenth as 
frightful ! As for waiting for the pious wiseacres of the com- 
munity to respect and patronize you, and leave their cards for 
me, everything depends upon the attitude in which we do this. 
If we wait, cap in hand, in a mean shanty, we shall be old as 
Mr. and Mrs. Methuselah before we receive a single call, 
professional or friendly. On the other hand, let me await the 
representatives of npperteudom in a fine house, well appointed, 
myself in silks and satins, diamond rings glittering upon fingers 
soft and white with idleness, and they will pour in by the score. 
They may come through curiosity — but they will come ! 
Dr. Suydam, rich and distinguished, will be the hero of a 
sensational romance. Louis Suydam, disowned by his family, 
and dependent upon his own exertions for a living, will meet 
with frowms and dead cuts everywhere. I, for one, am not 
going to run my head against a stone wall, so stubborn as 
this, for the sake of an abstract principle.” 

“ If it were an empty abstraction, I would uot urge it.” 


206 


ruby’s husband. 


She broke into his speech petulantly. “ The upshot of the 
matter is, Louis, you shall not make a fool of yourself at my 
expense ! When I want to be acknowledged as your wife, I 
wdll let you know. Until then it is none of your business to 
move in the matter. A gentleman would not press a disagree- 
able subject upon a lady after she had asked him to drop it. 
A husband who truly loved his wife would grant her the 
casting-vote in a question where she had a thousand fold 
more at stake than he had. I have no fancy for settling 
down to cooking your dinners and doing up your shirts. 
AVhen you can maintain me in the manner I had a right to 
expect ‘when you over-persuaded me to marry you, you may 
bring forward your proposition for another hearing. Until 
then, I stay wLere I am, and as I am ! ” 

Louis arose. 

“ At which time you will, I suppose, notify me of your sov- 
ereign pleasure, and we can enter upon negotiations bearing 
upon our future relations. I shall remit to you, monthly, a 
sum equal to that which you have received for the same 
period during the past year. If ' it is not sufficient to cover 
your expenses, you can let me know in writing. If you are 
sick, or in other need of me, send for me without hesitation. 
As physician or friend I shall come willingly and promp'tly ; 
as your husband, never again, unless you revoke the decree 
you have just uttered. If I cannot visit you as my wife, I 
will not as my mistress ! Good day ! ” 

Before Ruby recovered from her dumb astonishment, he 
had passed through the back room, excused himself from 
partaking of the Thanksgiving dinner upon the plea of an 
imperative engagement elsewhere, and was in the barn-yard 
helping Nick harness his horse. 

Ruby peeped at him from behind the curtain. 

“ But isn’t he the maddest man ! I really thought he was 
going to murder me when he jumped up, he glared at me so ! 
Never mind, old fellow ! I shall have you at my feet again 
in a week, and without sending for you ! What he needs at this 
time is a little.wdiolesome neglect ; and he shall have it ! 


ruby’s hu>sband. 


207 


CHAPTER XV. 

Mrs. Barry’s fan, that evening, was of rose-colored silk, 
dotted with gold, and supported by gilded sticks. Her dress 
was silver-gray satin, enlivened by knots of rose-colored rib- 
bon, stuck upon the angles of sleeves and bodice, and peeping 
from among folds. From her lace cap depended streamers 
of the same, and she disported herself like a superannuated 
fairy. 

“ I am but sixteen ! ” she chattered, a girlish gurgle swell- 
ing the skinny neck coated with pearl powder. “ Little one I 
withdraw yourself from my eyes, that I may indulge the fond 
delusion. I am sixteen — and it is the Thanksgiving day. 
I am again the happy, the adored Susanne. For I had the 
lovers — two — perhaps three — and they were not so sad 
under my smiles as is our young doctor. Confession is whole- 
some to the soul, my friend ! There are here but your father, 
your mother, myself — your very good friend — and the sly 
mouse of a girl over there, who is older and graver — it may 
be more wise — than her volatile mamma. Is it that Love has 
frowned, or that Science would not be wooed? You are 
gloomy. You eat nothing. You say nothing. Yet this is 
the gala day of America, when the law commands — ‘ Be 
gay ! ’ Come, we die to pity you — to comfort — to revive ! ” 

“ I have had a violent headache all day,” said Louis, 
gruffly. 

Her minauderies^ her frippery and foolery, angered him 
unconscionably, and he was suffering too intensely from other 
and graver troubles to care about preserving the semblance 
of politeness. 


208 


HaBY'S HUSBAND. 


The fan was closed with elaborate caution, lest the rattle of 
the sticks should offend his nerves ; and she wore an aspect 
of deepest concern. 

“ And in the pharmacopoeia so familiar to your learned self, 
is it that there is no soothing draught — ‘ poppy nor man- 
dragora,’ nor your dear mother’s celebrated — what is it that 
it is — Valeria — that can charm away the pain ! ” 

“ Mother ! ” said Frank. “ Excuse me for interrupting 
you — but can you tell me where I put the portfolio of photo- 
graphs I unpacked this afternoon? Mr. Suydam would like 
to see them.” 

Given this key-note, Mrs. Barry was voluble upon the pho- 
tographic art and the incredible pains she had taken to pro- 
cure the finest copies extant of world-renowned paintings and 
celebrated views. 

Under cover of Frank’s return with the portfolio, Louis 
would . have retired, had not Mr. Suydam summoned him to 
the table cleared for the pictures. With an inward groan, 
but an impassive exterior, he obeyed the request that he would 
join his father and Miss Barry in the examination of works 
of art the speaker was sure would interest him. 

“ He is not ^n art-student, like yourself,” he added to 
Frank, “ but a sincere lover of the beautiful, nevertheless.” 

“ Love and intelligent appreciation are far from being iden- 
tical, as I need not remind you. Miss Barry,” said Louis, 
seating himself opposite her, as she unclasped the folio. 

“ Appreciation, without native taste, can never rise into any- 
thing better than surface criticism,” was the reply. “ These 
are views for the stereoscope, Mr. Suydam,” laying aside a 
packet. “ I see there is a fine stereoscopic lens in the library. 
By and by, if you like, we will examine them through it.” 

She said little more while the two gentlemen inspected the 
plates. That little consisted in a pithy sentence, now and 
then, explanatory of the scene she drew from the heap and 
laid before them, or a hearty assent to the praises passed by 
one or the other upon some particularly fine specimen of the 

t* 


ruby’s husband. 


209 


engraver’s or photographer’s art. Mrs. Barry chattered inces- 
santly to her hostess — a vexatious patter, that wore upon 
Louis’s nerves like the continual dropping of a rainy day. In 
the excess of his irritation, he glanced across the stand at her 
daughter, — the very embodiment of healthful calm, — and m-ar- 
velled with the amazement of one who should find a young 
eagle in a magpie’s nest. 

lie paid scant attention to the matter of his companion’s 
speech. His brain was in a whirl, his heart sore, and full 
of wounded pride, outraged love, shame, remorse, and resent- 
ment. A new leaf of his life had been turned that day. It 
might have been a worthless thing upon which his anchor 
had caught two years ago, but it had held him fast to industry 
and virtue. However much his judgment had disapproved, 
and his affections been cooled by, the blemishes in his wife’s 
character, he had remained true to her in word and act. The 
thought of her, and the work set before him by his alliance with 
her, had saved him from many a pitfall of temptation — nerved 
him for many achievements that would not have disgraced a 
worthier parentage. Now, he was adrift — a bankrupt in love, 
and faith, and hope. 

Those most miserable of comforters — people who have not 
learned a wise charity from their own lapses into wrong-doing, 
or ffentleness from their own suffering — have a convenient 
formula of consolation for others whose misfortunes have 
sprung from over-confidence in their fellow-mortals. “ It is 
a mercy they have found out their mistake at last. Since 
their affections were fastened upon an unworthy object, how 
much better that they should be violently detached, than Con- 
tinue to cling to a base thing ! Better no love at all than a 
degrading one.” As in physics, so in morals, this class of 
humanitarians have an inveterate prejudice in favor of bitters 
as a tonic. 

When, on that morning big with disaster to all the borders 
of Philistia, the temple of Dagon was opened, and the head- 
less, armless stump of their god discovered prone upon the 
14 


1 


210 


ruby’s husband. 


floor before the ark of hated and defeated Israel, we do not 
read that a solitary priest who beheld the humiliating spectacle, 
turned iconoclast and completed the demolition of the helpless 
image. We have reason to believe, instead, that the dismem- 
bered trunk was reverently repaired and restored to its place 
ere the common people could look upon the ruin. We know 
that it was, henceforward, held more sacred than before, 
even by the ministers of the idolatrous rites. For, inasmuch 
as the head and the palms of his hands were cut off upon 
the threshold of the temple, “ therefore,” says the record, 
“ neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagou’s 
house, tread on the threshold of Dagon’s house in Ashdod unto 
this day.” ' 

In like bitterness of spirit Lours surveyed the wrecks of his 
broken image, from which all vestige of divinity had departed, 
and spurned the thought of comfort. But the mournful tender- 
ness of Dagon’s servitors was wanting from his musiugs. Stern 
as he was sorrowful, the dearest of gentle and loving memories 
was impotent to move him to repentance of the resolve that had 
exiled liim from Ruby’s presence. His curt farewell was for 
months, perchance years ; and, so far from regretting it, had she 
clung to his knees now, in all the glory of her voluptuous 
beauty, and prayed him to return ^to her arms, he would have 
reiterated the demand she had resisted that day, and abode by 
the result. Their estrangement was positive — he believed, 
final. Her unwomanly taunts had stirred up the worst dregs 
of a temper naturally generous, although quick. Memory, no 
longer held in with bit and bridle by conscience, rehearsed the 
"wrongs this woman had done him, until he could have hated 
her ; her and her tribe ; the mother, her accomplice in the 
■work of ensnaring Iflm ; the boorish father, the original cause 
of the misfortunes that made him feel like an impostor in the 
house of his own father, who loved and trusted him, yet whom 
he durst not undeceive. ^ 

The thick mustache veiled the gnashing" teelh, and if his 
fingers grasped the fretted legs of the table with a force, it 


ruby’s husband. 


211 


would seem, might knead the wood as a baker his dough, they 
who sat by and talked with him appeared blandly unconscious 
of the hell raging within him. 

He went, at length, into the library for the stereoscope. It 
was mounted upon a tall stand, and before he could lift it 
Frank was at his elbow. 

“ You are not well to-night. Dr. Suydam ! You are suffer- 
ing great pain. - Let me take that into the other room and 
excuse you. Nothing is worse for headache than straining the 
eyes through these lenses in the gas-light. But physicians are 
proverbially imprudent.’^ 

She had time to say all this while he bent his knee to the 
floor and pretended to adjust the screw of the instrument. 
The sisterly kindness of her address had beaten down his guard 
of morose reserve, and he required a few moments in which to 
regain his self-possession. So weary-hearted and wretched was 
he, that a word of sympathy from a child would have unmanned 
him. He laughed in rising to his upright position — a laugh 
that would have repelled Frank, had she felt less pity for his 
evident discomfort of mind or body. 

“You might add, proverbially obstinate in disclaiming the 
imputation of even temporary invalidism,” he rejoined. “ It 
is weakness in a strong, healthy man to hang out a flag of dis- 
tress because some dozen petty nerves in his scalp are out of 
order. I will be so unprofessional as to volunteer a prescrip- 
tion, which you may find serviceable should you ever be in 
acute pain. Physic suffering with resolution, double distilled. 
Determine that you will not be subdued, and the odds are vastly 
in favor of the conquest of mind over matter.” 

He spoke sardonically, but she apparently accepted his reply 
in good faith. 

“ That is sound advice, provided the desideratum of life be 
to learn hardness. Suffering, resisted thus, and successfully, 
must bring strength. But there are other qualiti es w orth pos- 
sessing besides strength. This dumb battle with pain is often 
but a refinement of brute endurance — the ignorant or perverse 


212 


ruby’s husband. 


self-torture of one who had rather die, than, by putting out his 
hand for the balm within his reach, confess his need of it.” 

She was not talking to him now. She stood in an attitude 
peculiarly her own, which would have been graceful in no other 
woman — her hands clasped loosely behind her, her head bent 
slightly forward ; and her eyes went beyond him into the 
empty air. Despite his distraction of mind, Louis was conscious 
of something vaguely yet ineffably melancholy in her tone and 
demeanor. She had her hidden grief. Was it regret for her 
dead betrothed? Had volatile, pleasure-loving and self-loving 
Fred gained the sanctuary of her heart? 

“ A man had better die dumbly, refusing to make any sign 
of the anguish which is consuming him, than wear his heart, 
like a pin-cushion, upon his sleeve,” he said, somewhat irrele- 
vantly to her remark, with savage pertinence to his own 
thoughts. “ One who does this invites a prick from every one 
he meets, and he generally gets it.” 

“ Real hearts are seldom sported in that fashion. Nobody 
cares how many pins are thrust into counterfeits. Shams of 
all kinds are contemptible.” 

“ Even sham fortitude — a blast of penny-trumpets over the 
exploit of bearing, without a groan, a headache of which no 
one would have heard, had not the victim proclaimed his mal- 
ady ? ” interrogated Louis, laughing shortly. 

Frank stepped aside to let him pass with the stereoscope. 

“ We had wandered from the. subject of your headache. You 
know I had no such meaning,” she said, quietly. 

Louis carried the instrumefat into the parlor, set it down, and 
returned to the library. Frank had moved to the window, and 
was looking ||^t upon the psirk, as he had seen her on the pre- 
ceding night. A sincere impulse of ingenuous shame made 
him approach her with his apology. 

“ Miss Barry, I came back to ask your forgiveness for the 
ungentlemanly speech with which I left you just now. It was 
unprovoked and ungrateful. But I am really enduring intense 
pain this evening, and am more irritable than usual.” 


ruby’s husband. 


213 


She smiled, putting out her hand frankly, as one gentleman 
would to another. 

“ I only regret my careless language. I suppose the truth 
to be, that we were both thinking about other things while our 
lips were busy with truisms, neither very striking nor coherent. 
If you had never alluded to the subject again, I should have 
understood perfectly that you did not mean to wound me. Why 
should you ? ” 

“Why, indeed?” Louis laughed at the simplicity of the 
inquiry. “ People rarely stop to ask that sensible question 
before appropriating a slight or insult. My intercourse, of 
late years, has been so much with the rougher sex, that I 
have not studied the amenities of social life as I should have 
done. If I should ever, in our future association, give you 
occasion to repeat your query, please answer it invariably as 
you do in this instance. Shall we go back to the photo- 
graphs ? ” 

They were a more lively party over the stereoscope than had 
gathered about the portfolio. The views were interesting to 
all, and most of them familiar to Frank. Mr. Suydam, who 
unbent in her company into a degree of bonhommie Louis had 
never seen him display towards another person, laughingly de- 
nominated her the showman of the concern, and she fell in- 
stantly into the spirit of the jest. Her remarks, prefatory to 
and explanatory of each scene, were thrown into the form of 
a lecture, graphic and entertaining, abounding in humorous 
illustrations and sprightly sayings, changing, at times, into a 
burlesque of the laborious vivacity of the cockney’s “jottings 
of travel,” or the pompous statistics of “ our own correspon- 
dent,” that elicited shouts of merriment from her auditors. 

Louis was moved to laughter with the rest, although the dull 
aching at his heart, that had superseded the sharper pangs of 
an hour ago, became more intolerable as the fun went on. 
Such hollow mirth was to be his for the remainder of his life. 
Youth, more sanguine in prosperity, is also more morbidly 
despairing than age when the sky blackens with unlooked-for 
clouds. 


214 


ruby’s husband. 


It was his turn to inspect the picture Frank had adjusted 
behind the lens, and he had stooped to the square of glass in 
the front of the instrument, when he heard his mother exclaim, 
“ Mr. Veddar, you are just in season to partake of our diver- 
sion ! ” 

If Frank noticed Louis’s countenance as he greeted the un- 
welcome visitor, she must have subscribed inwardly to the truth 
of his confession that the study of the “ small, sweet courtesies 
of life ” had had no place in his curriculum. A reception the 
sixtieth part of a degree more ungracious would have been an 
overt insult. The lawyer-dandy took it as he did almost every- 
thing, debonairly, and proceeded to play the irresistible to 
the three ladies. He found swift favor in Mrs. Barry’s eyes. 
Ably seconded by the accomplished fan, she went through all 
the artistically artless tricks that had made the adored Susanne 
the toast of half the young men in her native town, intensified 
by the fascinations she had learned abroad, and succeeded, by 
dint of bringing to the front her entire park of artillery, in 
making herself superlatively ridiculous to all present save her 
infatuated admirer, Mrs. Suydam, and perhaps to the respectful 
regards of her daughter. To the latter Mr. Veddar turned with 
question or compliment at every glimpse of an opportunity, and 
her manner of receiving, these was a curious sight to Louis. 
Casting aside her Momus mask at the stranger’s entrance, 
she had seated herself between the stereoscope and the table 
littered with pictures, and, so soon as her mother was fairly 
embarked upon the stream of flirtation, resumed the task of 
selecting the plates for the study of father and son. She did it 
with so little bustle, and her attentions were met so quietly, that 
the subdued ripple of their talk was, for the most part, inau- 
dible to the gayer trio on the other side of the room. 

To such of Mr. Veddar’s observations as w^ere directed to 
herself, she replied readily and politely — it might be more 
laconically than she was wmnt to express herself ; but she often 
dealt in brief sentences, and seldom wasted words upon trifles, 
and he could not complain that she repelled his gallantries with 


ruby’s husband. 


215 


prudery or haughtiness. It was just after she had bent a pa- 
tient ear, and responded in serious civility to one of his choicest 
specimens, that she singled out a couple of pictures from the 
heap. 

“ I shall not tell you the name of this,” she said to Louis, 
dropping her voice, as she arranged one in position for exami- 
nation. “ Your father has seen the original. I believe you 
will recognize it when you have studied it for a moment.” 

A sweep of level road, leading past a drawbridge and a 
moat ; a clump of trees, partially concealing the lower story 
of a castle, the peaked towers of which pierced sharply a 
cloudless sky; washing the base of the walls, a lake, clear 
and bright as the heavens over it, and faint in the purple 
distance a mountain range. Louis saw nothing more until 
he had scrutinized it for not one, but several moments. Then 
a finger stole between the lens and the paper, •pointing silently 
to a window low down in the lakeward wall. 

“ I see ! I know ! ” he exclaimed. 

“ Lake Leman lies by Chillon’s walls ! ” 

Reading confirmation in Frank’s smile, he gazed again long 
and earnestly. 

“It is the next best thing to visiting the spot in person,” 
said Frank, presently. “Here is the interior of the dungeon,” 
substituting another plate. 

While he looked, she repeated very softly, as if to herself, — 

“ There are seven pillars of Gothic mould, 

In Chillon’s dungeons deep and cold; 

^ There are seven columns, massy and gi’ay, 

Dim with a dull, imprisoned ray, 

A sunbeam which hath lost its way. 

And through the crevice and the cleft 
Of the thick wall is fallen and left.” 

“ We saw it all — the pillar to which Bonnivard was chained ; 
his footprints upon the floor, and seeing, felt — as you will do 
when you stand upon the same ground.” 


216 


ruby’s husband. 


“ How full of thrilling interest ! ” said Veddar’s voice behind 
her chair. “ Will you kindly allow me a glimpse of the pic- 
ture, Dr. Suydam? This is rfeally very fine — exquisite. A 
French photograph — is it not, Miss Barry ? And the lines you 
quoted were Byron’s, I believe. You will find Dr. Suydam 
au fait to modern, as to ancient classics,” relinquishing his 
place to Louis, who showed no disposition to avail himself 
of the civility. “ There was a time when he threatened to 
relapse into studies of a different nature — animated nature, 
in fact. I had grievous suspicions — or shall I say, fond 
hopes — of you, doctor ! By the way, what has become of your 
golden-haired incognita. Miss Manning?” 

“ Scarcely incognita, if you know her name.” replied Louis, 
carelessly. 

Ruby could keep her own counsel when it suited her ends to 
do so, and she had never told her husband the incidents of her 
return drive from the cemetery. Louis imagined that Veddar 
had been misinformed as to her name by a third person, or 
had manufactured one for this occasion, with a view to intrap- 
ping him into giving the real cognomen. 

Mrs. Suydam caught up the word. 

“ Manning ! Who is she, Louis ? Why have I never heard 
of her before ? ” 

“ I refer you to Mr. Veddar, madam. He introduced the 
subject.” 

“ I beg a million pardons if I have been indiscreet,” answered 
the malicious gossip. “ But I fancied the young lady was an 
intimate friend of the family. I gathered as much from her 
own lips. Very pretty lips they are, too I Hers is a rare 
type of American beauty. Miss Barry. You must prevail upon 
Dr. Suydam to introduce her to you. His disposition to mo- 
nopolize her society should not debar those of her own sex from 
enjoying her acquaintance.” 

“Is it that there is a type of American loveliness more rare 
than the other?” wheezed Mrs. Bari*y, plying her rose-colored 
oars lightly, and beamingly condescending to thp raw beauties 


ruby’s husband. 


217 


of the New World. “ For me, I find a great, an infinite 
variety of styles. I cannot classify them. I discern no char- 
acteristic national, but a blending of many and the diverse fea- 
tures. Believe me when I declare that this is piquant, unique — 
in one word, delightful — this diversity, this peculiarity, this I 
know not what — may I say this mixture the most anomalous 
which leads one to assert that the beauty of America, like the 
architecture of this interesting country, is, in its order, com- 
posite ! ” 

“ A happy phrase, madam ! ” bowed Mr. Yeddar. “ And 
in enunciating an opinion so just and original, you corroborate 
my statement that Miss Manning’s physiognomy is sui generis 
in this latitude. Picture to yourself a blonde, with a skin of 
mother-of-pearl underlaid upon the cheeks with roses, and on 
the temples with violets ; scarlet lips and milk-white teeth ; a 
profusion of rich, dark auburn hair, and eyes in which the hue 
of her abundant tresses is reflected ; a figure like Juno’s, and a 
step like Diana’s, — and you have the siren who, for a season, 
beguiled our Galen into forgetfulness of books, scalpel, and 
gallipots.” 

Frank had arisen to set her clxair back from the table as 
Mr. Veddar approached, followed, an instant later, by Mesdames 
Barry and Suydam. She had turned her head slightly at his 
address to herself, and appeared inclined to respond pleasantly 
to his remarks introductory of Miss Manning’s name. Some- 
thing changed her purpose. Louis, infuriated at the fellow’s 
impertinence, and his inability to* punish it as it merited, yet 
noticed that she moved quickly away from Veddar’s side, a 
shadow of blended repugnance and pity flitting over her tell- 
tale face. 

“ He is half drunk, and she has discovered it ! ” he thought, 
as he got a fair view of the watery eyes and inflamed com- 
plexion. ^ 

Mrs. Barry’s perceptions were less acute, or her moralities 
less strict. 

“What eloquence!” she cried, with bewitching archness, 


218 


ruby’s husband. 


in the exuberance of her mirthful appreciation, fulfilling to the 
letter the fan-master’s directions for manoeuvre No. 1, — to wit, 
“shaking her fan at ‘ Veddar’ with a smile, giving her right 
hand woman a tap upon the shoulder, then pressing her lips 
with the extremity of the fan, and, finally, letting her arms fall 
with an easy motion.” “ What eloquence ! Ah ! it is easy 
to see that our young doctor’s bosom friend has not escaped 
scathless, — that the skin of pearl, roses, and violets, the teeth 
of milk and hair of auburn, the eyes — I forget the color of 
the matchless eyes, Mr. Veddar.” 

“ They ’match her hair, he says,” rejoined Mr. Suydam, 
dryly, “ and that is red. I cannot say that I admire your 
taste, young gentlemen ! ” 

“ Mr. Veddar is responsible for the portrait, and expressed 
admiration for the same,” Louis returned, yet more grimly. 

“ If I were on the footing witji the subject of my imperfect 
sketch that you are, I would present her to this honorable com- 
pany in her own beauteous person, and challenge adverse criti- 
cism,” retorted Veddar. “ My acquaintance with her does 
not even include the knowledge of her place of residence. I 
only know that she does not live in Krawen, nor yet far distant 
from it.” 

“Who is she, Louis?” Mr. Suydam demanded, as if tired 
of badinage. 

“ Put your question in a more manageable shape, if you 
please, sir, and I may be able to answer it.” 

“ Who is this Miss Manning?” 

“ I know no person who bears that name.” 

“ She has exchanged it for another, then, since you used to 
escort'her to the opera, and take her out in sleighing-time, and 
walk with her by moonlight,” said Veddar, positively. 

“ That may be ! ” 

Louis passed his hand across his forehead, and Frank saw, 
what no one else did, that it gathered the sweat in thick 
globules before it. 

Mr. Suydam heaved a sigh of weariness — or relief. 


ruby’s husband. 


219 


“ Indeed ! so she is married? ” 

“ She is, sir ! ” 

Yeddar looked incredulous, then feigned discomfiture. 

“ This is sorry news ! The man who withdraws a magnifi- 
cent creature like that from the general gaze incurs a heavy 
responsibility. Can he compensate her for all she resigns — 
bellehood and its prerogatives? Did she marry one who can 
appreciate and make her happy? Who did you say carried off 
the prize ? ” 

“ A man for whom I have a thorough contempt ! ” Louis 
brought out, sharply. “ And having said thus much, I may be 
excused for withholding his name.” 

Mrs. Barry wriggled' up to him, and patted his arm with her 
fan. 

“Ah, my poor doctor, how I commiserate you! There is 
the cry of pain in what you s^y of this perfidious belle. I am 
sure I should detest her. Console yourself, my friend. She 
would have made your cnp of life to be bitter — she, so fair 
and treacherous ! And the red eyes ! Bah 1 ” 


220 


ruby’s husband. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Upon the extreme edge of the southern suburb of Krawen 
stood a piazza, closed on three sides by lattice-work. Four 
steps led to the floor from the street, and, at the top of these 
a solid door, painted green, resisted the advance of unlawful 
intruders. Behind the piazza, as was discovered when this 
door unclosed at the visitor’s knock, was a house, to which the 
latticed portico was as the husk to the mat. Behind this still 
was a long, narrow garden, gay, on a warm May afternoon, 
with early flowers, and holding promise of greater affluence in 
the hot-beds, crowded with tender annuals, and cuttings of more 
valuable exotics, and in the weedless borders of black mould, 
light and warm with constant upturning to the air and sun. 
Just across the street, if the unpaved highway could be so 
called, was a small greenhouse, flanked by another garden, and 
entered by a gate, which was always kept locked excepting 
when the proprietor was within. 

From this emerged, on this May afternoon, two women — the 
one a foreigner and middle-aged, coarsely dressed, with a 
clean checked apron over her stuff gown, and a r^ hood cov- 
ering her head. She was a picturesque figure, thus apparelled, 
her black eyes glittering and her teeth shining with pleasure, 
as she tiptoed across the muddy road, her hands full of flowers — 
purple, yellow, white, and scarlet, gesticulating and jabbering 
faster than American fingers and tongues could do under provo- 
cation more powerful than the event of a call from a favorite 
guest. This last was Frank Barry, honest, open-browed, and 
kindly as when she had first chatted with Katrine over the 


ruby’s husband. 


221 


marble flower vase in Mr. Suydam’s parlor, nearly half a year 
before. 

Mrs. Barry had, in January, bought and taken possession of 
a house, not three streets removed from the Suydam homestead, 
and fronting upon another of the parks about which Krawen 
fasliionists clustered, as bees upon a tempting bough. Sue, the 
second single daughter, had returned from her southern visit 
two months later, but — as was speedily bruited in the disap- 
pointed circle that had counted largely upon the acquisition the 
pretty and accomplished girl would be to their ranks — was 
engaged to a wealthy Louisianian. If the wooing had* been 
brief, the betrothal was likely to prove shorter, the wedding-day-.- 
having been set for the first week of June. There was no talk 
of Frank’s marrying, in consequence mainly of the report, 
cleverly circulated by Mrs. Suydam, of her engagement to her 
lost son, although Frank’s own demeanor had a certain effect 
in confirming the story, and the belief that she preferred a single 
life. She treated gentlemen and ladies alike, simpering misses 
averred, round-eyed at the phenomenon. She was indifferent 
to general society, and cared nothing for the gallant devoirs in 
which other young ladies luxuriated, the gentlemen complained. 
Even the uuabasliable Veddar had been heard to declare that 
his most dexterous compliments and most obsequious devotion 
“ did not remunerate ” when brought to bear upon her. Yet 
she was popular ; was probably the better liked by those of her 
own sex than if she mad'e many notable conquests among the 
Krawen beaux. 

“I must say ‘ good afternoon ’ now,” she said to Katrine, 
W'hen they reached the latticed porch. “ I will send down to- 
morrow for the plants I have selected. I will not trouble you 
to tie up the bouquet for my sister. Put the flowers into my 
basket here. I can arrange them at home.” 

“ No, no ! ” Katrine shook her head in vehement denial. 

“ Jes you step into mine leetle parlor. I have dem all fix in 
one — two minute. Come in, coifie in ! You been in mine 
house before ! ” 


222 


ruby’s husband. 


“ And shall be again, many more times, I hope,” answered 
Frank, following her guide through an ante-room into one. still 
more diminutive beyond. 

“Jes'so!” responded Katrine, with all her heart, pulling 
the one rocking-chair the room contained near the window for ' 
her companion. 

There was a serviceable carpet upon the floor, a round table 
covered with a green cloth in one corner, and three green wooden 
chairs, drawn up close to the wall to allow free passage from 
the door by which they had entered to another opening into a 
bed-chamber. Frank could survey the interior of the latter 
nook from her seat. The inevitable Dutch bed was there, 
heaping the tall bedstead midway to the ceiling, and covered 
with a spread of many colors. 

“You seen dem in de ole country?” observed the quick-eyed 
mistress of this wren’s nest. 

“ Yes, and slept upon them.” 

“ Den — den you know what sleeps is ! not de sleeps one 
gets on de mattress — husk, straw, hair — but goot, sound, 
hard sleeps dat take de ache from de bone, and make one 
over goot as n^w ! Dr. Sujdam — he laugh when I tell him 
dat. ‘ Faugh K’ he say. ‘ Feaders ! give you sick Joseph clean 
cool straw bec^.when he ’ave de fever. De feaders choke and 
heat de poor boy ! ’ ‘ Dr. Siiydam,’ I say, ‘ look at me — me, 

Katrine Weiss ! I come to dis countree mit two guilder in 
mine pocket — dat’s all ! F wash, I sew, I iron — I nurse your 
broder — until I marry mine Charles. Den I bring him two 
hundred dollar — all my saving. He ’ave jis’ fifty dollar, and 
we put it togeder, and we say to your fader, “ Mr. Suydam,” 
we say, “ you ’ave one acre wet ground on de edge of de marsh. 
We will buy it.” He give it to me — one wedding gift — for 
my angel boy as I nurse, he say to him, “ Poor Katrine, give 
lier one home, fader ! I pay you for it,” he say. Was not he 
goot!”’ ' ' 

“ It was very kind.” 

Katrine nodded exultantly over the bouquet her rapid fingers 
were binding. 


ruby’s husband. 


223 


“ Ah, but I ’are de goot friends, de reech relations! Well, 
we build jes’ so leetle a house, and a shed for a cow, and when 
de cow was paid for, all our money gone ! Mine first biiby — 
mine ‘ Lisabet ’ — she in heaven now — was born on a pile of 
shaving in dat corner dere. You no believe me? but it is true. 
And Mrs. Suydam, she send her maid to ask me to come nurse 
anoder child — a leetle, ever so leetle babe dat died. I laugh, 
laugh, laugh ! but Charles, he cry like a child. De maid cry 
too. ‘ Poor Katrine, poor Katrine ! but you was de fool to 
marry ! ’ she say. Den I speak ! ‘ I never so happy till now,’ 

I say. ‘ I ’ave de goot husband, de dear baby, and de goot 
Gott over us all,’ I say. Mrs. Suydam, she send me one 
bed — nice, soft feader bed, and I got well. I help mine 
Charles dig, rake, plant. I milk de cow for butter to sell, and de 
pot-cheese — O, some day I give you one of mine pot-cheese ! — 
and milk de goat to feed de babies. I raise geese for de feaders, 
and we make money, and all we make we save — and we gets 
reech — ever so reech ! Dis is mine house — dat is mine 
greenhouse. We ’ave two cow, a horse, two pig, five childer, 
and we jes’ so happy as kings. I do all dis, I tell Dr. Suydam, 
and I never sick. I strong as an ox — as a man. I can reap, 
thresh, dig de damp ground all day long, and I sleeps on light, 
sweet feaders from minev own geese, and plenty of them ! Say 
no more to me about straw, husk, hair, dey like breekbats ! ” 

Frank laughed. She would not mar the good creature’s 
complacency by recounting the agonies of suffocation and 
sleeplessness she had undergone in Holland inns, when plunged 
into the yielding depths of the vaunted mass of feathers. 

I am glad yout little boy is better. He was very sick — 
was he not?” 

“ Very sick ! One day I say, ‘ Charles, we must let him 
go to his leetle broder and sister up dere ! ’ pointing. But 
Charles, he cry, ‘ No ! ’ and run for Dr. Suydam. O, he is 
de goot doctor — if he is young! ‘Be brave, Katrine,’ he 
tell me ; ^ we will pull him through 1 ’ And he did, for no 
charge, too — not one cent ! I offer him many dollar. ' I say, 


224 


huby’s husband. 


‘ We reech enough to pay for my boy’s life.’ But he shake his 
head, so. ‘If I give, your boy life,’ he say, ‘take it as one 
present from me, and let me break off this sweet tea-rose, and 
wear it in my button-hole all day, as one present from you. 
That’s fair.’ Wasn’t he goot? ” 

Frank’s eyes shone dimly. 

“ It was a noble act ! ” 

“ He is one nobleman. He will marry some day, and may 
de dear Got send him one wife as goot as himself ! ” 

A rap at the 'outer door brought her to her feet, and she 
bustled out. Frank had arisen to go, when she heard her rap- 
turous reception of the new visitor. 

“ You come to see if mine Joseph quite well, and' he gone 
to school, dis de first day ! He is so much better you don’t 
know ! ” 

“ I am glad of it. I thought I would inquire in passing. 
You are all well — husband, children, cows, and flowers?” ' 

“ Yes — all, all ! ” cried Katrine, merrily. “ I ’ave one new 
flower in mine parlor — one exotic, jes’ from over de water. 
Come in and see it.” 

Frank blushed like the carnations in her nosegay when Louis 
stood upon the threshold of the inner room, transfixed at sight 
of her. But she joined in his laugh as he regained his wits 
and perceived Katrine’s trick. 

“ How do you do?” he said, shaking hands with her. 

Her palm was cool and firm, and her fingers closed upon 
those of a friend ,with cordial emphasis. There was no need, 
to one meeting that sincere clasp, and reading her deep, clear 
eyes, for her to say, “ I am happy to see you.” 

“ It has been an age since we met,” pursued Louis, cour- 
teously. 

“ It has been a long time,” was her ingenuous answer. 
“ You are very busy — are you not? ” 

“ Busy enough to prevent time from hanging heavily upon 
my hands. What lovely flowers ! ” 

“ They are for Sue. She is going out this^evening to Mrs, 
Kissam’s. Shall you be there ? ” 


ruby’s husband. 


225 


‘‘ No. I am no party goer.” 

“Nor I. Mrs. Weiss, I am much obliged to you for put- 
ting these up so handsomely. I shall come again before long. 
Your garden will be growing prettier every day, now.” 

“ You did not walk to this quarter of the town,” exclaimed 
Louis, detaining her. 

“ O, yes. I am an Old World pedestrian, remember. I 
seldom use the carriage.” 

“ But it is raining, and you have no umbrella.” 

“ Raining ! ” Frank drew back the curtain. “ It is only a 
spring shower. I am not afraid of a few drops.” 

“ My carriage is at the door. Let me take you home,” pro- 
posed Louis, in a matter-of-fact way, that would have piqued 
many women. “ I am going directly past your house.” 

“ In that case, I accept your offer gratefully.” 

She made this rejoinder after a thoughtful pause, in which 
she seemed to weigh some question of more moment than the 
invitation she had received. 

Large, deliberate drops of rain were falling upon the roof of 
the porch when they went out. 

“ Wait one minute,” entreated Katrine, as Frank would 
.have descended the steps. 

Rushing back into the house, she brought forth from some 
convenient corner a huge brown cotton umbrella, and from 
the kitchen a clean towel. She put the first into Louis’s hand, 
with the injunction, “ Hold it over her,” and rati out into the 
street to the buggy that awaited them. Before the amused 
spectators could hinder her, she had wiped the mud from the 
tires of the wheels between which Frank must be handed to 
her seat, and drew back, with a pleased smile, to make way 
for the young people. 

“ Thank you. You are very thoughtful,” said Frank, tak- 
ing her place in the carriage. 

“ That is like you, Katrine,” Louis added, approvingly. 

“Ah, she ought to be/cared for ! ” was the reply. “ She is 
goot I ” ' vj 


15 


226 


ruby’s husband. 


“ That was a touch of courtly hospitality worthy of the days 
of Raleigh,” continued Louis, when they were out of earshot. 

“ And unlike Raleigh’s famous disdain of ruined cloth, this 
was not done with an eye to future patronage,” returned Frank. 
“ 1 buy many flowers of her, but she gives me, at each visit, 
as many as I purchase. There is no such thing" as successful 
opposition to her ‘ O, I sharge you not’ing at all for dat 
leetle root ! You one such goot customer ! ’ ” 

“ She appreciates, as the rich seldom do, the real luxury of 
beneficence,” said Louis. “ She gives of that which would 
bring in visible additions to her hoard ; and Katrine, like 
most of her country people, knows the value of money.” 

“ I have often thought of that.” 

The listless or absent-minded tone caused Louis to glance at 
his companion. She was looking straight forward at some 
imaginary point between the horse’s ears, but the firm set of 
the mouth and chin had nothing dreamy about it. She was a 
queer girl in some respects. Any other lady in her place 
wauld have exerted herself to entertain the handsome young 
physician whose politeness had been so apropos to her need. 
She did not speak again until they were half way to her moth- 
er’s house. Louis, albeit himself somewhat inclined to taci- 
turnity, did not know whether to be amused or oflfeuded at her 
singular behavior. At last, the silence .Jije.com^g absurd in 
length knd causelessness, he made a movemejiW;o wards so- 
ciabilily. 

We shall have a storm instead of a shower. The wind is 
due east,” he said, stretching his head forward to get a sight 
of a steeple vane. 

“ Ah ! ” still dreamily. Then, with a total change of voice 
and bearing she brought her serious eyes around to his. “ Dr. 
Suydam, I have been anxious to see you for several weeks 
past.” 

Louis bowed. 

“ You had only to command my attendance. Miss Barry.” 

“ I know it. But the question was whether 'T had a right 


ruby’s husband. 


22T 


to do this ; whether, ia the circumstances, it was expedient 
or justifiable.” 

She stopped again, and her eyes returned to their visionary 
resting-place. 

‘‘ In the name of all that is sensible, what does she mean by 
her laconics? ” thought Louis. “ What have I done? What 
does she know about me, or what can she wish to say to me 
that may not be proclaimed from the market tower over yon- 
der?” 

“ You are the fit judge of these points,” he said, sedately. 
“ If I can do you a service, I shall be happy if you will allow 
me the opportunity.” 

“ I know it,” reiterated Frank. “ Less from my own ac- 
quaintance with you than from your father’s confidence in your 
sincerity and kindness of heart. He would not trust you as he 
does, if he had not excellent reasons for esteeming your sense and 
discretion. My hesitation has not sprung from doubt of these. 
I am persuaded that what I have to say would be safe in your 
keeping. I believe, moreover, that no one else could advise 
me better in my grievous strait.” 

“ My father?” suggested Louis, a little startled by the last 
sentence. 

“ By no means. He is a true friend. Pie would be a ydse 
counsellor in most matters. But it would be wrong to agitate 
him. Then, too, in the present case, he is, I suspect, ignorant 
as myself. Shall you be engage^this evening? ” 

“ Only for an hour or two. That is, I know of no engage- 
ments that will occupy a longer time.” 

“ Can you spare me half an hour, about or after nine o’clock? 
My mother and sister will be out.” 

“ If you were any other damsel than Frank Barry, I should 
call that the coolest sort of an appointment,” reflected Louis, 
sorely tempted to smile. 

In consideration of the fact that it was Frank Barry, who 
never did things exactly aiif other people did, and whose deport- 
ment to himself was always particularly friendly, in recollection, 


228 


ruby’s husband. 


doubtless, of her love for his brother, he replied that he would, 
with pleasure, wait upon her at the designated hour. 

“ I will not detain you long,” she promised. 

Then they stopped at her mother’s door, and she thanked 
him for his civility in bringing her home, quite as if she were 
a grandmother and he a stripling in roundabouts, or as if 
he were the grandfather and she a miss in pantalets, — he 
could not determine which, — and they parted. 

He did not ask himself whether curiosity or the desire to 
serve her took him to Mrs. Barry’s that evening ten minutes 
in advance of the time appointed. 

“ Mrs. Barry and Miss Sue were going out, but Miss Barry 
was at home,” the servant answered his inquiry for the ladies. 

He heard Frank’s footstep upon the stairs before he was 
seated in the parlor. She came in more nervously than was 
natural to her manner. She wak pale, too, and her eyes 
wavered slightly from him as she spoke. 

“ My mother and sister have not gone yet. They may stop 
to speak to you on their way to the carriage. Of course they 
are ignorant of the occasion for your call.” 

“ I comprehend.” Pitying her confusion, Louis replied, re- 
assuringly, “ I am ashamed of myself that so natural an affair 
as an evening call from me at this house should seem to require 
explanation. It is merely the fulfilment of an oft-delayed pur- 
pose. I am an incorrigible offender in the matter of visiting, 
says my mother, and I believe she is right.” 

Mrs. Barry, entering while he was* spealj;ing, had the benefit 
of the closing remark. She wore a moire antique of a soft 
shade of lavender, open from the throat to the zone to display a 
stomacher of rich old lace. Diamonds gleamed upon her neck 
and fingers, and depended — blazing stars — from her ears. Her 
sandal-wood fan was trimmed with lavender silk, and attached 
to a slender chain of gold, the other end of which was fastened 
to her bracelet. By dint of powder, rouge, and hair-dye, she 
had succeeded in appearing more like a faded young woman 
than a tolerably well kept old one, and that was the utmost that 


ruby’s husband. 


229 


could be said of her. Mortifying, yet certain result of the 
bravest fight vanity and art combined can make against stealthy- 
footed age ! 

She was in high spirits, and unatfectedly pleased to see Louis 
indier home. 

“ That dear mother ! It is she who is always right ! ” she 
cried, tossing fast jets of Oriental perfume from the carved ribs 
of her fan up to his nostrils, and gazing languishingly at him. 
“ She understands — no one better — that the gay world misses 
our young doctor ; that it makes the moan in his absence, and 
that he would be the happier man if he hearkened to its entreaty. 
It is not well for man to be alone. The Holy Scriptures — 
say they not this ? I hail this call as the dawn of the blessed 
reformation. I am (phagrined that inexorable duty — the duty 
to society — calls nay Susie and myself away. Ah ! but she is 
a tyrant — is society ! ” 

“ Now, mamma, you know you like the pomps and vanities 
of this life fifty times better than we young people do,” inter- 
posed Sue, good humoredly. 

She loved her mother, but her demeanor towards her lacked 
the deference that distinguished Frank’s every word and action 
in^the presence of her parent. 

And why not, my saucy m^s? Because my children are 
^o disrespectful as to grow into tall young men and women, 
without regard for the feelings of their mother — still young, 
still lively, still able to perceive and enjoy the bouquet of the 
rich wine of existence, is it that this is a reason why I should 
retire to a convent. Miss Susie? You would be pleased to see 
me devout^ I doubt not ; but I shall be your rival for many years 
to come,” brushing the soft bloom of her daughter’s cheek with 
her open fan, and gurgling unmusically, “ say you not so, my 
young, wise doctor ? ” 

“ You seem to be blessed with a fine constitution, madam.” 

“You hear that. Miss Frank 1 ” ejaculated the ancient' co- 
quette, radiantly. “ Say bettei* than either of her daughters 
ever had, my dear friend, and earn from me the eternal grati- 


230 


ruby’s husband. 


tude, and also cover these giddy young creatures with confusion. 
Eh, Miss Barry ! have I shamed you of the degeneracy of this 
generation of young women — you, who practise calisthenics, 
and use the horrible cold bath, and walk — walk — to win the 
roses my mother Nature has planted to bloom perennially in 
my cheeks.” 

Sue tried to echo her laugh, but the glow of anger or mortifi- 
cation crept up to her temples at this senseless rhodomontade. 

Frank answered simply, “ We are very willing to be out- 
shone by you, mother. Has the carriage been announced. Sue? 
Mother, do you know that it rains ? Have you rubbers ? ” 

‘‘ Rubbers ! ” cackling shrilly. “ What absurd caution is 
this? See!” protruding the tip of a lavender satin gaiter 
beyond the bottom of her dress. “ I make my appeal to you, 
doctor. Is it not that my foot is well protected against the 
dampness of the summer night ? ” 

“ Not against the chill pavements of Krawen, I fear, Mrs. 
Barry.” 

“ It is but a step to the carriage,” said Sue, hastily. 
“ Mamma, we must go.” 

“ Good night, little one.” Mrs. Barry patted Frank’s lips 
with her furled fan, fearing, possibly, to kiss her, lest the ver- 
milion of her own should be moistened by contact with the 
fresh young mouth. “ Consult our young doctor here upon 
the best mode to preserve your precious health. She has a 
medical mania, doctor. Forbid her to use the calisthenics, 
and to take the long, vulgar walks, precisely like a mountain 
milk-maid. O, she is an inveterate democrat, that girl, there, 
but very good and very dear, nevei^heless ! Au revoir ! ” 

Louis guided her mincing steps to the carriage, a^d on the 
stairs his trained olfactories helped him to another revelation 
that destroyed the meagre vestige of respect he had retained for 
her until that moment — respect called Lorth not by her personal 
claims to it, but by the fact that sllb was the parent of two 
interesting daughters. 

“ Sandal-wood, patchouly, and opium ! ” he muttered, sniffing 


ruby’s husband. 


231 


contemptuously as the carriage rolled away. “ I have suspected, 
since that first evening, that hers was fictitious animation, but 
I did not think quite so bad of her as this. She is no better 
than a drunkard ! ’’ 

Frank was sitting on a low chair, at some distance from the 
light, her elbow resting on her knee, her face partly shaded by 
her hand. Louis sat down near her, and made a remark upon 
the sudden chill that had fallen upon the air since sunset. 

“ It is colder,” she answered in a low tone, without altering 
her position. 

Then Louis waited for her to introduce the subject that evi- 
dently engrossed her thoughts — waited in silent watchfulness 
that lost no motion of hers. He saw the slender fingers quiver 
and close twice; heard one deep .sigh, and she sat upright — 
self-contained, and ready for business. 

‘‘ I wish, as you may have divined, to consult you in your 
professional capacity. Dr. Suydam, and confidentially. I have 
a friend who, three years ago, met with what seemed, at the 
time, to be a very slight accident. She was bruised here.” 

She touched her chest with her forefinger, coloring deeply as 
she did so, but showing no other mark of confusion. 

“ The external discoloration disappeared within a week. 
But, a month later, she discovered that there was under the 
skin a small, hard swelling, not larger than a pea, which 
was sore when touched. From that time this has increased 
gradually in size, and she suffers great pain. The swelling is 
now larger than a walnut. But there is no surface inflam- 
mation. What is it, and what, remedies would you pre- 
scribe ? ” - % 

She loqjcid directly at him, but he evaded the mute appeal. 

“ What is the character of the pain? ” he asked, in the calm 
voice of purely professional interest. 

“ Always a dull aching. Often — more frequently now than 
at first — there are darting pangs, radiating in all directions 
from the nucleus. These are very severe — very terrible ! ” 

Had she/ looked at him now, she would have seen him 


232 


ruby’s husband. 


change color, and bend a gaze of moved compassion upon 
her flushed countenance. She had sunk her head again upon 
her hand, and he caught the fluttering gasp, 'proving that res- 
piration brought with it suffering. He had never suspected it. 
He deemed her faultlessly sound — healthy in body as she was 
equable in spirit. The very glow of her complexion was, then, 
the hectic of decay ; her unvarying cheerfulness the fruit of the 
victory of a strong mind and indomitable will over physical 
anguish, the thought of which made him sick and faint. 

“ I am sorry to push you with inquiries upon a distressing 
subject,” he resumed, kindly, almost tenderly. His heart 
throbbed with ineffable pity over the young, frail girl, the 
agony of whose past experience was, in all likelihood, but a 
foretaste of fiercer anguish. 

“ Do not hesitate,” she said, quickly. “ I wish you to know 
all. Having put the case into your hands, there should be no 
foolish reserve on my part, no mistaken delicacy. I will 
reply to whatever question you ask.” 

“ You are a thoroughly sensible woman. Miss Barry. I 
wish there were more like you among my patients,” said 
Louis, encouragingly. “This swelling, as you call it — tumor 
would be the better name.” 

Still watchful of her, he marked the shudder that shook her 
against her will, as he pronounced the dread word. 

“Is it movable? Can it be slipped from side to side under 
the pi’jessure of the finger ? or is it stationary, as if it had formed 
what term attachments, to the bone or flesh beneath it?” 

“ It is not movable.” 

She saw that he had hoped for a different reply. 

“ You are quite sure of this? ^ 

“ I am.” 

Louis meditated for an instant. 

“ I will imitate your frankness,” he said, then. “ Tumors, 
such as you have described, are of two kinds. I will distin- 
guish these as simple and cancerous.” 

Avoiding medical technicalities as far as he could, he ex- 


ruby’s husband. 


233 


• plained Ihe nature of both ; the causes from which they sprang, 
their attendant symptoms, and the treatment adopted by the 
ablest physicians in each case. He was not surprised that 
much he said w^as already known to her. A woman less 
intelligent and self-reliant would have been driven by the pres- 
sure of the terrible secret to learn all that books could teach 
with reference to the malady threatening to sap the foundations 
of her constitution. He elicited no fresh information from her 
relative to her symptoms, excepting the eager interruption 
when he spoke of hereditary cancers. 

“ There has never been anything of this kind in the family 
before.’* 

“ I am glad to hear that — very glad,” he replied. ‘‘ With 
untainted blood, general good health and youth on the side of 
the patient, there is little in what you have told me to excite 
alarm. My advice to your friend would be to commit her case 
to some eminent and experienced physician. I should, of 
course, recommend Dr. Milnor. He is skilful, candid, and 
honorable. We have agreed to waive false delicacy, and you 
will allow me to remind you of the absolute necessity that he 
should ascertain for himself the precise nature of the affection. 
It may be a trifle, that will yield readily to medicine and simple 
external application. Should it be anything more, involving 
the necessity of an operation, she must recollect that the terror 
of this extreme measure is chiefly in the anticipation. The 
use of ana3Sthetics has been brought to such perfection that 
these scenes are robbed of their most painful features.” 

“ She would never submit to an operation,” said Frank, 
hoarsely. “ She would die first. Is there no other way?” 

He wmuld have been vexed, as he was disappointed at this 
turn of affairs, but for the distress in her flice and accent. He 
had honored the genuine good sense she had displayed up to 
this moment, admired, more than he dared to express to her, 
lier freedom from the mawkish airs and prudish concealments 
that fretted him beyond endurance in many of liis lady patients. 
But this declaration, and her extreme discomposure as she made 


234 


ruby’s husband. 


it, reminded him that she was but a woman after all, and there- 
fore liable to the dominion of all manner of whims and varia- 
tions of resolution. With a commendable muster of patience, 
he reverted to his remark that it was uncertain whether the 
knife would be used at all. 

“ I infer, however, from all you have said, that you have 
serious apprehensions that it must come to this, if the person 
diseased would hope for a final cure,” she answered. “ And 
if this resort is impossible, what will follow ? ” 

“ I prefer that you should take Dr. Milnor’s verdict instead 
of mine.” 

“ Which means that you apprehend a lingering, painful de- 
cline?” interrogated Frank, in desperate composure. 

“ I can hold out no hope of anything else.” Louis deter- 
mined to try the effect of very plain speaking. 

He regretted it when he saw her turn ashy white, and catch 
her breath convulsively. 

“ I am not fainting,” she managed to say, as he moved 
towards the bell. “ Don’t ring.” 

“ This girl should have been born in LacedaBmon, in the 
heroic age,” thought the physician, as she mastered the 
spasm, and calmness returned to her features. “Yet she 
shrinks from the operating table and the knife. Strange 
inconsistency ! ” 

“We are taking too much for granted,” he said, cheerfully, 
■when she could listen. “ I have already expressed my hope 
that youth and a sound constitution will be our most efficient 
allies. There is wondrous recuperative energy in^the young. 
Whatever • corrupt matter may have crept into the system is 
often expelled without the aid of drugs by sheer vitality. Na- 
ture seems to relax the care of her children as they advance in 
years.” 

“ This has been my worst fear,” said Frank, lowly. “ All 
that I have read and heard on the subject tend^ to confirm it.” 

Louis looked perplexed. 

“ I certainly understood you to imply, if you did not assert, 
that your friend is young.” 


ruby’s husband. 


235 


“ She is over fifty years of age,” replied she, yet more lowly. 

His speechless astonishment was a new light upon what had 
gone before. 

“ You have not believed, all this while, that I was talking 
about myself!” she exclaimed. 

“ I have. It is a great relief to learn that you were not.” 

“ I would not have sheltered myself behind so paltry a sub- 
terfuge. If the secret had been mine, I should have imparted 
it in the plainest language I could employ. I could wish it 
were ! If mine were the pain and the peril, my load would 
be easier 1 ” 

She did not weep, but the passionate emphasis of her curt 
sentences, the yearning and woe of her dry eyes, touched his 
heart to the quick. 

He walked twice through the rooms in perplexed thought, 
then halted in front of her. 

“ I believe every word you say, and I comprehend you fully. 
You have betrayed nothing. You have guarded your friend’s 
secret well, and it shall be as safe in my keeping. For it is 
mine I May I go on ? ” 

‘‘ You may.” 

“ I have already, unintentionally, revealed to you the truth 
that the case we have considered is less hopeful than if you 
were, as I thought, the patient. Moreover, tlie difficulties of 
ascertaining the precise symptoms, of the thorough investiga- 
tion into the nature of the disorder, are tenfold greater tlian if 
you were to be dealt with. I am right in this — am I not?” 

“You know nothing about it!” Frank started up in irre- 
pressible agitation. “ The injury was inflicted by an ill-directed 
and very heavy nosegay which was thrown into our balcony at 
the Roman carnival. I discovered her condition by accident, 
eighteen mouths ago. She fainted, one night, on her return 
from a ball, and I loosened her dress. We were alone. I 
said nothing of what I had seen until two days after, when 
she had another attack of faintness and nausea. Then I could 
hold my peace no longer. I have never seen her really angry 


236 


ruby’s husband. 


with me, excepting that once. But I persisted in my inquiries 
and entreaties until she told me all. It was to be a secret 
between us. Not even my sister suspects it. I do not think 
my mother regrets having taken me into her confidence, for I 
am admitted to her room when she has most need of help and 
sympathy. She suffers horribly I ” 

The daughter bent her head upon the marble mantel, and 
shivered in the recollection. 

“She is averse to summoning medical assistance?” 

“ She will not hear of it. She will have it that nothing 
serious ails her. This ‘ petty trouble will wear away soon.* 
She has ‘ heard of hundreds of similar cases that were cured 
by being let alone. The pain is sharp sometimes, but a mere 
bagatelle to what many suffer, and, like nervous headache, is 
not dangerous.* This is her manner of treating the subject 
when I force her to speak of it. Unless I do this, she ignores 
it altogether. I have reason to fear that she often, endures 
great agony, and conceals it from me through this unaccount- 
able repugnance to talk of her malady.** 

“ Unaccountable, but not uncommon. This feature in such 
complaints is so familiar to physicians, that it is taken into 
account in making out their diagnosis of the disease. Mrs. 
Barry would not be willing to confer with Dr..Miluor, you 
think?’* 

“ She would close her door against him if he were to call 
on this errand. Dr. Suydam, my hands are tied ! I see the 
danger as clearly as you do. I have consulted aU the treatises 
upon this disease to which I could gain access. But she rejects 
the regimen laid down in them all. You see what her life is, 
and, knowing what you do now, you can bear witness to the 
invincible resolution — the — I had almost said — miraculous 
fortitude that enables her to hide her misery from other eyes 
than mine. Me she can never hoodwink. I think the con- 
sciousness of this irritates her sometimes when she has much 
to conceal. This life is making me old. Often I am wild 
with dread. To-day, when Katrine told me of your kindness 


ruby’s husband. 


237 


to her sick child, I made up my mind that I must ask your 
advice. The idea has been frequently with me since I 
listened, some weeks since, to an account, given by a lady, 
of a critical and successful operation you had performed early 
in your professional career, and of your growing reputation as 
a surgeon. I thought you could tell me whether it would be 
absolutely necessary to use this means. I shall never forget 
your kindness, your patience, your sympathy. I have tres- 
passed upon all of these by my clumsy method of telling my 
story, and my weakness when you delivered your opinion. I 
hoped I should command my feelings better.’’ 

“ You shall not depreciate yourself. Miss Barry. Your 
behavior has been noble and admirable. You shall never 
repent the confidence you have reposed in me. Your single- 
ness of filial duty must be rewarded in time. I will give you 
a few rules for the management of the disease in the present 
stage, and trust to your tact to persuade your mother to adopt 
them, without the knowledge of how you have obtained them. 
Meanwhile, watch for an opportunity of changing her resolution 
not to call in medical advice. It may be circumstances will 
favor you in this regard when you least expect it. Should any 
novel symptoms supervene, you will oblige me by letting me 
know without delay. As the friend of my father and my brother, 
you have an indubitable right to my services.” 

When Mrs. Barry and Sue returned from their party — a 
quiet “ sociable,” beginning at eight and breaking up at mid- 
night — Frank was still in the parlor. She had lowered the 
gas, and stationed herself by the window to watch for them, or 
to enjoy the effect of the street lamps upon the wet flagging 
of the sidewalks. 

“ Dull music that, I should think ! ” said Sue, yawning. 
“ Yet about as lively as our evening has been. Even mamma, 
who, like the bee, gathers honey from everything that pretends 
to be a flower of pleasure, looked miserably ennuyeed by eleven 
o’clock. I never attended a stupider soiree.'* 

“ Hear the affianced Mariana, inconsolable for the absence 


238 


ruby’s husband. 


' of the ‘ one bright particular star ’ ! ” replied Mrs. Barry, 
feebly vivacious. “ Our evening might have been more gay, 
but when the hostess does her best to amuse her guests, criti- 
cism should be dumb.” 

“ As you were, mamma, during the half hour you sat upon 
the uncompromising divan behind the door, and listened to the 
fat man in spectacles and a white cravat ! ” retorted Sue, mis- 
chievously. “ She looked like a wilted rose, Frank, under the 
solemn fervor of his eloquence. Her very fan ceased to move.” 

“ You are a saucebox, whom one is a fool to regard ! ” said 
her mother, in French, with a sorry grimace intended for an 
indulgent smile. “ When did our young doctor leave you to 
the enjoyment of your beloved solitude. Petite?” 

Frank answered in the same language. “ At eleven o’clock.” 

Mrs. Barry’s eyes sparkled with real delight. 

‘‘ I*am charmed to hear that he staid so long ! He is a 
favorite with me — the dear, handsome youth ! ” 

“You consider him handsome? I don’t ! ” said giddy Sue. 
“ He is too grave and taciturn to suit my fancy. He looks like 
a man who has a burden on his mind.” 

“ He is none the worse for that,” said her sister. “ None of 
us are, if it be a burden which the Lord, and not our own 
folly, has laid upon us.” 


ruby’s husband. 


239 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Mrs. Suydam’s thorough familiarity with the various grades 
of Krawen society was the skimmer by means of which Mrs. 
Barry gathered the creme de la creme of the city and its environs 
to grace her daughter’s bridal night. The festivities were impos- 
ing throughout. The bride was pretty, and superbly dressed ; 
the bridegroom, rich, fashionable, and gentlemanly ; Mrs. Barry, 
the most suave and attentive of hostesses. Nobody -^not even 
her mother and sister — knew how much of the excellent arrange- 
ment of the fke and the satisfaction of the guests was due to 
Frank’s taste and executive abilities. Whatever she undertook 
was done well and quietly. Herself unostentatious to the ex- 
treme of simplicity, she would have preferred, had the matter 
been left to her option, a modest wedding breakfast, attended 
only by the nearest of kin and a few chosen friends. But 
Sue’s liking in such respects coincided precisely with her 
mother’s, and Frank was too unselfish to lay a straw in the 
way of their plans. 

Mrs. Barry, true to her threat of rivalling her daughter, 
divided wdth her, that evening, the notice of connoisseurs in 
ladies’ apparel. She wore a pearl-colored satin, trimmed with 
point lace, lappets of old point fastened by pearl pins to her 
dyed tresses, and a ravishing shawl of the same diaphanous 
material veiled her arms and neck. If the bride in white silk 
and diamonds, brilliant in beauty and happiness, were the sun 
of the scene, her maternal loveliness might typify the softer 
lustre of the moon. Her purely white fan frosted with silver 
was a marvel of chaste elegance ; her manipulation of it pro- 


240 


ruby’s husband. 


duced the etFect of scintillating rays from a twinkling luminary, 
while her honmots and sugared sayings were cast to the right 
and left like showers of confetti at a carnival. 

“ An unfortunate comparison,” thought Dr. Suydam, as it 
occurred to him. 

On his guard, all the time, lest some significant glance from 
him might betray Frank’s confidence, he yet watched^furtively 
Mrs. Barry’s progress through the throng — listened for her 
wheezing falsetto amid the clamor of two hundred other 
tongues. lie studied her with the curiosity he would have 
felt in the analyzation of some anomalous hybrid, some wan- 
ton freak of Nature. But Art was creator here. With the 
sure seeds of an agonizing death festering visibly within the 
bosom that heaved in pants of coquettish laughter, she w^as 
tripping in fantastic measures down to her grave. The gnaw- 
ing evil above her heart was never still ; but she defied it, in 
a flippant jest, to extort from her one sigh or start of pain. 
Her overweening vanity and worldliness were the bulwark 
behind which she fought the vanguard of dissolution. As he 
thought of these things, her painted visage and set smile were 
a flimsy covering through the grinning outlines of which the 
death’s-head could be distinctly traced. In a martyr for truth 
or affection’s sake, this fortitude and reticence would have 
been sublime. In her, the servile puppet of fashion, it was 
a ghastly farce. 

“ I hope you have not regretted your good nature in ac- 
cepting our invitation for to-night,” said tones clear and fine 
as the chime of silver bells across the water. 

“ I have not ! ” answered Louis, starting, with a sensation 
of guilt in having allowed his mind to dwell upon that which 
the speaker concealed so sedulously. “ I have seldom been 
to 4 pleasanter party.” 

“I should have given you more credit for sincerity had you 
said a less tiresome one,” returned Frank, smiling. “ For 
myself, I have been too busy to suffer the boredom which is 
generally my portion on similar occasions. I mean at these 


ruby’s husband. 


241 


mammoth assemblies. I like to have room in which to breathe 
and move.” 

“ Your parlors are large and well ventilated,” Louis was 
saying, when Mrs. Barry swam up to them in her moon-like 
glory. Her escort was a man of sixty-five or thereabouts, 
who wore a very juvenile wig, very white teeth, a jetty 
mustache, a conceited smirk, diamond studs, and a suit of 
clothes cut in the extreme of the latest fashion. 

“ Ah, behold my second conscience ! my little mentor, who 
is ever on the alert lest her thoughtless mamma should com- 
mit some offence against the Medo-Persian laws of the code 
American ! ” lisped the lady. “ And my dear young doctor, 
who is ten years older than you, my good Mr. Guysbert, and 
forty thousand times more wise ! Will you that I refer your 
audacious proposal to them ? ” 

“ I consent, in the confident expectation that they, being mod- 
els of wisdom and taste, will second it,” replied Mr. Guysbert, 
laying his hand upon his heart, and bowing to the pattern pair. 

“ Bah ! You will not conciliate them by your flatteries ! 
They are proof against the forces that bear down the weak 
will of women credulous and vain like me. I will betray 
your folly, and you shall see my Minerva and my Hippocrates 
ridicule your infatuation. He prays me, my children, to ex- 
ecute upon the harp certain melodies that charmed him years — 
.so many years ago ! when we were both young and enthusiastic. 
He has heard, he tells me, that my touch and style have im- 
proved with time, as does the good wine. In vain I assure 
him that I have not practised in a thousand years — that my 
fingers have lost their cunning. He will not hear it. O, you 
will not believe how obstinate he is ! how tiresome ! how intol- 
,erably pertinacious ! Perhaps you will that I add, how irre- 
sistible, sir? Is it so?” 

You have stated the truth with your characteristic per- 
spicuity, madam. I need only to be convinced of the correct- 
ness of your last clause by your compliance with my humble 
petition.” 


16 


242 


ruby’s husband. 


Mr. Guysbert twirled liis jewelled eye-glass. Mrs. Barry 
unfurled and fluttered her fan until her lappets streamed out 
from her head like the wings of a monstrous moth. The 
broadest satirist would have found it impossible to caricature 
the couple of antiquated butterflies. 

“ But the band is playing, mother ! ” objected Frank. “ And 
the dancers will soon take the floor again.” 

“ That is nothing ! Did we not agree that, in consequence 
of the heat of the weather, the dance was to be intermitted from 
lime to time? You said, my forgetful child, that the intervals 
could be filled by amateur musicians. My heart smites me 
that I have refused my friends so often the little favor for 
w'hicli Mr. Guysbert prays. I am not so silly as to be beguiled 
into exhibiting my poor talent by a few fine phrases from one 
deceitful tongue,” — a coy flutter of the fan Guysbert- ward. 
“ If I yield, it is that I may have peace from entreaties, and 
that my friends may learn how mistaken they were in solicit- 
ing that I would oblige them. It is a happy thought. I 
will chagrin them as the penalty of their importunity ! Mr. 
Guysbert ! behold me at your service ! Dr. Suydam, will you 
command the musicians to be idle until they receive further 
orders ? ” 

Frank drew nearer to the frolicsome dowager. 

“ Mother ! dear mother ! ” Louis overheard her plead in a soft 
aside, “ remember ! ” 

Nor was the furious flash of her mother’s sidelong glance lost 
upon him. Her voice, too, was like acidulated honey. 

“ Little one ! have you yet to learn what is meant by your 
mother’s ‘ I will it’?” 

“ La reine le veut ! ” repeated Guysbert,* with a profound 
reverence, and they swept onward. 

Louis performed his distasteful errand, and uneasily threaded 
the crowd to the door of the music-room. It was filled with 
curious gazers at a tableau in the centre of the apartment. 
;Mrs. Barry was tuning her harp ; Guysbert was upon one knee 
adjusting her foot-cushion and music-rack. Just as Louis 


ruby’s husband. 


243 


obtained a glimpse of them, a third figure joined the group. 
Frank, like a classic statue in the noble mould of her color- 
less features and the sweep of her white draperies, stood at 
her mother’s side. 

“ Let me tune it for you, mother ! You dislike the tedious 
preface to performance. I do not.” 

“ Behold the dutiful daughter ! ” laughed Mrs. Barry, relin- 
quishing the task, and falling into a fine attitude of waiting, as 
a sultana might rest among the velvet cushions while her favor- 
ite slave made ready her lute. 

She shook her fan menacingly at some compliment of Guys- 
bert, inaudible to the bystanders, and lapsed into taciturnity, 
waving her ray-dispenser slowly to and fro, in languor or reverie. 
Louis, pressing gradually into the inner rank of the lookers-on, 
saw her chest heave and palpitate in nervous anticipation of the 
ordeal she was bent upon sustaining, or in physical pain. 
With far less circumspection than he had displayed in piercing 
the phalanx of would-be listeners, he retraced his steps to the 
outer room, procured a glass of iced champagne, and bore it 
over the heads of the crowd, without losing a drop, to Mrs. 
Barry. He presented it, not kneeling, as Guysbert would have 
done, but with a bow that won the approbation of the sovereign 
of the hour. 

She thanked him with a gracious grimace, that brought out 
for him into bolder relief the feature of the death’s-head, raised 
the glass to her dry lips, and drank it with avidity. 

“It is nectar to my parched throat — parched and thirsty 
after so much talking ! ” she said, in her airiest manner. “ My 
harp, it shall thank you for the draught so refreshing.” 

She played mechanically well, and one could have listened 
with pleasure to her performance, had he shut his eyes to the 
contortions of body and visage she deemed essential to the ex- 
pressive rendering of the piece selected. She undulated from 
head to foot like a wounded snake ; drooped like a scalded cab- 
bage plant ; soared, with upturned face, as an ambitious duck 
rises on tiptoe to snap at a flying bug ; and anon bowed herself 


244 


ruby’s husband. 


to the grand finale as a blacksmith hammers a cooling horse-" 
shoe. i 

“ No, no ! ” she reiterated, in response to the rapturous “ en-^ 
core.’’ “ I have fulfilled my promise ! I have disappointed! 
you all! I have played out my stratagem I I retire from, 
the stage! My dear young doctor, may I ask for an arm?,' 
This room is oppressive ! Let the band resume, and the 
dance.” 

Louis, warned, by the deadly sallowness striking through 
pearl powder and carmine, that the season for action was 
short, led her out by the nearest door. Frank opened it forjj 
him, and followed them closely. They were in a small back i 
hall, shut in by locked doors on two sides. A private stair- 
case led down to the basement and up to the second floor. 

“ The heat has been too much for you, dear ! ” said Frank, 
tenderly. “ Will you go to your chamber until you are better? 


“It was the heat — the excitement — the crowd — nothing 
else ! ” 

And with the gasping lie upon her lips, she swooned out- 


risht. 


Without more ado, Louis picked her up when she reeled 
against him, and carried her dexterously up the narrow stair- 
way. She was light, in her faint, as a child of thirteen — a 
mere skeleton, as he could feel. All her plumpness was pad- 
ding. 

“ This way,” said Frank, at the top of the steps. Another 
small, empty entry, and they passed into a chamber, where the 
insensible figure was laid upon a bed. 

“ Have you hartshorn in the house?’ inquired Louis. 

“ In my mother’s room ! This is mine.” 

She darted ofiT, and was back, in an instant, Avith a case of 
restoratives. 

“ Her dress must be loosened. I will wait in the hall in 
case you should Avant me,” pursued Louis, retiring. 

Frank called him back, and pointed to the adjoining dress- 
ing-room. 


ruby’s husband. 


245 


“ Some oue might pass through the hall while you were 
there. If I do not call you soon, there is a door opening 
into the entry,” she said, hurriedly. 

The gas was burning low in the dressing-room, but he did 
not raise it. He stood, instead, at the one window, straining 
his ears for sounds from the outer chamber. For two, three 
minutes all was still, except for the subdued rustle of Frank’s 
dress as she moved about the bed. Then a broken groan, and 
a word of loving inquiry, and he knew that the lonely girl’s 
work of mercy had brought back the scared life to the out- 
raged body. Hysterical sobs marked the continued return of 
consciousness, and then a stifled scream. Still Frank did not 
summon him, and he withstood the impulse to intrude upon 
the sufferer — the two sufferers — for there uprose before his 
memory the daughter’s face, as she had said, “ If mine 
were the pain and the peril, my load would be easier ! ” 

“It is like a knife ! It tears my heart I ” he heard Mrs. 
Barry moan, and Frank’s tender soothing — as the mother 
bird murmurs to her young. 

Then distinctly, “ Dear mother. Dr. Suydam is in the 
other room. Let me call him ? He brought you up stairs in 
his arms. He will be very discreet — very gentle ! ” 

“Are you demented, girl?” in a loud, frightened whisper. 
The rest was lost. 

The whispering w^ent on a while longer, and Frank unclosed 
the door of the smaller room. 

“ Dr. Suydam ! My mother is better. She wishes to thank 
you for your attention to her just now.” 

Her tone was dry, and her features bespoke weary disap- 
pointment. 

Mrs. Barry reclined upon the bed, the sallowness still 
showing through the paint, the powder having been renewed 
since the application of w^ater to her face. She held out both 
hands with a horribly sickly smile. 

“ My dear young doctor ! there is the healing in your touch. 
I shall ever regret that I was not partially conscious when 


246 


ruby’s husband. 


you lifted aud brought me up the stairs. The tableau was 
effective — was it not? I find the incident romantic — de- 
licious ! The spirit of Crichton, the soul and the deeds of 
Bayard, linger still in a few knightly bosoms. I faint with 
much of grace — do I not?” 

“ I am a novice in such scenes,” returned Louis, smother- 
ing his disgust. “How do you feel?” 

He had taken one of the offered hands, and adroitly put 
his fingers upon her pulse. It was wiry and irregular, de- 
noting fever and excessive nervous derangement. 

She jerked her wrist away. 

“ Fie, then ! is it thus that you take advantage of my 
weakness? Would you have me to become a hypochondriac? 
I have had the sad heart all the evening. My Susie, my 
sweet bird of song, leaves me for another nest. My friends 
say, ‘ Smile ! * the world bids me to laugh, to sing, and all the 
while the thorn pierces my breast. I faint in the effort ! 
Behold the sole cause of w'hat you have seen ! ” 

Louis did not glance at Frank. He would spare her this 
added mortification. 

“ You will, however, accept my professional services so far 
as to empower me to make your apology for not appearing 
below stairs again this evening?” he said, respectfully. 

“ How ! You dream ! I rejoin my guests on the -instant ! ” 
And why not? I am well ! entirely as I should be ! ” 

“ Mother ! ” murmured Frank, beseechingly. 

Mrs. Barry raised herself angrily from the pillow. 

“You grow officious, Frances Barry ! I have indulged your 
whims until they are unbearable. I am your mother — not 
your slave ! ” 

Louis staid for no more. When the incensed woman re- 
covered her reason, she would be grateful for his departure, 
and every word heard by him was another drop of gall in 
Frank’s cup. ' I 

His mother met him just within the entrance of the dancing- 
room. 


ruby’s husband. 


247 


“ Is Mrs. Barry indisposed?” she asked, anxiously. 

“ A little faint — or she was, just now,” he answered 
shortly. 

“ She is a person of exquisite sensibility,” said Mrs. Suy- 
dam, sympathizingly. “ Her daughter’s marriage is a severe 
trial to her affectionate heart. I have seen all the evening 
that she was struggling heroically with her emotions.” 

“ She should be used to the trial by this time, I should say. 
Tliis is the third daughter she has seen torn from her shel- 
tering care by ruthless robbers in the shape of eligible partis,"* 
rejoined Louis, in his most cynical tone. “ Poor woman ! 
She merits the commiseration of her friends and acquaint- 
ances ! This is the prescribed mode of doing it, I suppose. 
Are all these laughing, talking, dancing people battling he- 
roically against their sympathy and sadness?” 

“You scoffer ! ” Mrs. Suydam laughed to conceal her dis- 
pleasure. “ Frank, love, what shall we do to convert him 
to belief in human goodness?” 

“Did you speak to me, Mrs. Suydam?” Frank turned 
back to say, in passing. 

“ Yes. I want your help in converting this sceptic son of 
mine from the heresies of misanthropy. Here he is, ridiculing 
self-denial, disinterestedness, and all the other cardinal virtues 
that redeem mankind from crustaceous degradation.” 

“ Oysters are estimable creatures in their way,” interrupted 
Louis, to avert the threatened revelation. 

“ He insists upon it,” pursued Mrs. Suydam, “ that these 
people are all selfishly happy ; that not one of them is cloaking 
liis own sadness or anxiety, and decking his face in smiles that 
« others may be made glad ; that when the surface is bright, 
there is peace below, or that there are no depths to be stirred.” 

“ In Solomon’s time every heart knew its own bitterness,” 
said Frank, pleasantly. “ I fancy the world is no happier 
now.” 

Face and tone were discreet, but for the wretchedness of 
her deep eyes. To shield this from his mother’s observation, 


248 


ruby’s husband. 


Louis made a playful rejoinder, offered bis arm, and proposed 
a promenade. He exerted himself, moreover, to entertaiu 
her — not with the frothy nothings he would have offered for 
the regalement of any other young lady present, but by 
sprightly, intelligent talk of books, music, and cognate themes. 
He did not hope to give pleasure to a spirit so bowed as was 
hers, but she was secure, while he appeared to engage her at- 
tention, from embarrassing questions, and relieved from the 
necessity of answering others. 

They had made the tour of the apartments but once before 
Mrs. Barry intercepted them. Under cover of the invaluable 
fan, she squeezed his hand hard, and twinkled her heavy eyes 
into a condition approximating humidity. 

‘‘ Is it that I have offended you beyond hope?” she wheezed. 
“You resent my unfortunate impulsiveness — my constitutional 
impetuosity — is it not so? Alas, I am so mercurial! I am 
precisely as a thermometer. The breath of cold, the least 
slight, dashes my spirits to the earth. I grovel in despair. I 
sink in an abyss of woe. Then, at a touch of fire, the 
approach of warmth, I mount, I lose my head ! I am no 
more a creature rational, but a thing that foams — exhales! 
My little one here and I have wept, each in the arms of the 
other. I have prayed her to forgive my impetuosity. She 
has replied — the angel ! — ‘ Dear mamma, do I not know thy 
infirmity of nerves — thy temperament the most sensitive ? I 
forget all. Say no more.’ And you, my dear young doctor, 
is it that you accept my abasement?” 

“ I remember nothing, madam, except that I have the hap- 
piness of seeing you well again.” 

It cost him a struggle to deliver the gallant phrase, and when 
this was effected, he would have despised himself for both effort 
and speech had Frank’s eyes been less expressive of gratitude. 


ruby’s husband. 


249 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

The outer and larger office of Drs. Milnor and Suydam 
was plainly and sparsely furnished. The many who penetrated 
no farther into the establishment than the waiting-room went 
away with an impression that the associate physicians were 
men of simple tastes and strictly business habits, in whom 
increase of means had not engendered ostentation. Behind 
this lay the consultation chamber and private office. This 
was‘ fitted up as a library parlor, and in it sat, upon a pleasant 
day late in June, the junior partner, profoundly absorbed in 
the last number of a foreign medical journal. His writing- 
desk was open beside him, and on it lay several loose pages 
of manuscript, to which he referred from time to time. He 
dabbled in authorship himself, and having just completed an 
article upon the very subject handled by the transatlantic writer 
of the printed thesis, he was eager to ascertain in what respects 
their theories coincided or differed. 

Pardonable interest in his brain offspring was the cause of the 
frown with which he raised his head at the office boy’s rap upon 
the door of communication with the front room. 

“ A person to see you, Dr. Suydam,” said the lad, hesitat- 
ingly, having obtained permission to enter. 

“Man or woman?” 

“ A man, sir.” 

“Did he ask for me particularly?” reluctantly closing the 
lid upon the manuscript. 

“ He did, sir.” 

In the outer office stood Nick Sloane, distressingly brawny 


250 


ruby’s husband. 


and beefy, in a clay-colored summer suit, a Byron collar turned 
broadly over a wisp of pink cravat, and a low-crowned, rakish 
straw hat, surrounded by a sailor’s band. 

“ How do you do, Mr. Sloane?” said the son-in-law, stiffly, 
and they imitated the motion of shaking hands. ‘‘ Do you 
wish to speak with me ? ” 

“ Well, I do,” swaggered Nick, familiarly. * 

“ Then step in here,” leading the way to the other room. 

Nick helped himself to a chair, wiped his face with a gay 
silk handkerchief, stamped all over with blue and scarlet dogs, 
and stared about him with the air of one whose pretensions 
to proprietorship in the room and furniture were not to be 
cavilled at. 

“ Nice den, this of yours,” he said, patronizingly. 

“ You wished to speak to me for a moment, you said,” re- 
plied Louis, peeping at his watch with a mien that hinted at 
countless engagements. 

Yes, I fetched you a note.” 

Louis received and read the scented billet, as he would have 
taken and inspected a grocer’s account. 

“ She needs Saratoga water, you see,” commented Nick, 
when it was refolded. “ She is real poorly this summer. I 
want that you should come out and look at her. I think, 
myself, she’s a-going into a decline.” 

“ Does she keep her bed ? ” 

“ Most all day. And she’s fell away powerful. I never see 
a woman change like she has done since last fall.” 

Louis was silent, and his countenance doggedly non-com- 
mittal. 

“ Look here ! ” continued the affectionate father, persuasively, 
“ why can’t you two kiss and make up?” 

“ Did she tell you to say that ? ” 

“No — that is — not exactly that. • But she’s let on tome 
more’n once that she was a-breaking her heart after you.” 
Scanning the impassive visage from beneath his bushy eye- 
brows, he was at a loss how to proceed, and felt his ground 


ruby’s husband. 


251 


inch by inch. “ It stands to reason that husband and wife 
had ought to live together.” 

“ When either can derive any profit from the other,” put in 
Louis. 

Nick was slightly disconcerted by the accent, not the words, 
of the sneer. 

‘‘ But it’s the Lord’s app’intment — marriage is,” he continued. 

“ Ofteuer the devil’s ! Was this what you came to say to 
me?” 

“ I didn’t mean to discombobberate you,” said Nick, pacifi- 
cally. “ It’s sort o’ nat’ral, you see, as I should feel for my 
poor girl.” 

“ I see nothing natural about your pity for her. She has 
all she wants — hasn’t she ? except a hundred dollars for which 
she has applied to me.” 

“What is money without a person has a satisfied mind?” • 
queried Nick, pensively. 

“ What it always is — money ! Your only business with me 
was to bring this note, then? Did you expect to take the 
money back with you ? ” 

“ Well, if it was perfectly convenient to you, I s’pose ’twould 
accommodate her,” said Nick, candidly. 

Louis opened a drawer, took out a blank check, filled it up, 
and rang for his office boy. 

“ Bring me the money for that, quick ! ” he ordered. 

Spurred to celerity by ihe stern face and tone, the lad did 
his errand speedily, and the bills were passed over to Nick. 
Then Louis laid a receipt before him. 

“ Sign that, if you please.” 

An ungainly signature it was, and the Nicholas was spelled 
without the h. Louis stood up when this little matter was 
transacted. 

“ You will excuse me for reminding you that my time is 
precious.” 

“You’ll come out and see her — won’t you? She’s three 
quarters sick, you know ; no more color in her face nor there is 


252 


kuby’s husband. 

in a pocket handkeTclier, and weak as water. I’d like to have 
you give her some medicine, or somethin’.” 

“ I may call to-morrow. I cannot come sooner.” 

The door shut behind the burly form, and the icy mask broke 
up stormily. The young man ground his teeth, and dashed 
his fist upon the table in a frenzy of rage and humiliation. 

“ This clog I am to wear about my neck while I live ! Why 
should I care or strive to rise ? Can I drag her up with me ? 
If I gain wealth, she will squander it. If fame, she will assert 
the wife’s right to a share in the husband’s glory. This is the 
price the man pays for the insane folly of the boy. All that is 
left for me to do is to save my few friends from the knowledge 
of my degradation as long as I can ! ” 

He struck a match, applied it to Ruby’s note, and let it burn 
into ashes. These he blew away with a contemptuous putf 
from the table on which they had dropped. 

“ What was once love has as much life in it as they have — 
no more.” 

Ilis patients found him doubly reserved and grave in his 
morning rounds. The day was cool for the season, although 
bright, and the twelve o’clock train was filled with Krawenites, 
as he took his place among them, having engaged to run down 
to the great mart on business for his father. Of course, there 
was a rush for inside seats, to wit, those next the windows. 
These were secured for the most part by men, who, more agile 
and fearless than the feminine passengers, sprang upon the train 
before it fairly ceased to move, and disposed of themselves as 
they pleased. At least i^^ozen benches in each tier held but a 
single occupant, a complacent settler in hat, coat, and panta- 
loons — whose elbow half shut up his window as he inhaled 
the breeze, and eyed, at his ease, the emiSarrassed women wan- 
dering up and down the aisles in quest of an empty seat, or 
trying to determine in what location they would find their 
inevitable juxtaposition to a strange man most tolerable. 

Louis had reached the depot just as the train did, and walked* 
directly aboard. Selecting a seat on the shady side, and equi- 


ruby’s HUSBiND. 


253 


distant from both ends of the car, he took possession of it, and 
opened a pamphlet he had taken from the post oifice on his way 
down. Something, he did not know what, made him look np 
suddenly, in time to see a slight figure pass him in line with 
the anxious sisterhood mentioned above. 

“ Miss Barry ! ” he exclaimed, springing up, “ here is a seat. 
I have been keeping it for you,” he added, jestingly, as she 
took it with the courteous expression of gratitude that met 
every offer of kindness or civility. 

“ Your thoughtfulness for my comfort amounted to actual 
prescience, since I did not know myself that I was going to the 
city an hour ago. Mother discovered, at half past eleven, that 
she could not go on with her embroidery without more silk of 
a shade which cannot be matched in Krawen.” 

“ How is she? ” 

It was safe to ask the question, for the cars were in motion, 
and he spoke too softly to be overheard by their neighbors. 

Frank shook her head. 

“Not nearly so well as she was in the spring. The fatigue 
and excitement attendant upon Sue’s marriage and departure 
for Europe was a serious draught upon her strength. She is 
weaker each day. The pain recurs at shorter intervals, and 
the paroxysms are far more severe than ever t)efore.” 

“ She is still unwilling to have a physician ? ” 

“"Yes. I have prevailed upon her to use the remedies you 
prescribed, without telling her how I gained ray knowledge of 
their efficacy. I doubt, however, if tliey benefit her. I fear 
their influence is counteracted by opium. This drug has a 
wonderful effect upon her. It dulls Bodily pain while it exhil- 
arates the spirits. But it is gradually losing effect. She has 
doubled lier daily allowance within the last six months.” 

Louis was very grave. 

“ Frank — I beg pardon — Miss Barry ! ” 

“Call me ‘Frank.’ Why should you not? Your brother 
(fftcn did. I can talk to you with more ease upon this subject, 
if you will let me forget how short a time has elapsed since 


254 


ruby’s husband. 


our personal introduction to one another. What were you 
saying V* . ^ 

“ In virtue, then, of my brotherly prerogatives, let me press 
home upon you one fact. If your mother’s life is to be saved, 
you must put forth every effort now, without the delay of a 
day, to conquer her aversion to the disclosure of her situation 
to a competent physician. My counsel is that you tell her, this 
very evening, all you have learned from me respecting cases 
like hers. Say that you have described the symptoms of a 
person afflicted as she is to me, and that I asserted the danger 
to be imminent. Do not be afraid of terrifying her. Des- 
perate diseases require desperate remedies. The best thing 
you can do is to frighten her thoroughly. The task will 
be painful. If I could relieve you of it I would. But you, 
you alone, have her ear and her confidence. The time may 
come when you will repent the mistaken tenderness that sealed 
your lips.” 

Frank leaned her head upon her hand, and did not speak 
again until the train had traversed a full mile of meadow 
track. 

“ I will do as you advise, for you are right. Before I sleep 
this night she shall hear all I know,” she said ; then, whitely 
resolute, “ I had rather be torn by wild beasts. But I ought 
to do it — and I will ! ” 

“ You will acquaint me with the result of your effort? ” 

“ Immediately. You shall hear from me early to-morrow 
morning.” 

She turned her face to the window, and seemed to gaze upon 
the country through which they were passing. 

“ Who lives in that house? ” she demanded, in her most off- 
hand manner, pointing to Meadow Cottage. 

Confused beyond his powers of concealment, Louis bent 
forward, pretending ignorance as to what building she desig- 
nated. 

“ The white house in the middle of the moor,” she con- 
tinued. “ I have taken a curious interest in it from the first 


ruby’s husband. 


day I saw it. I have conjectured much and vainly about the 
reasons that led to the erection of a dwelling in a location so 
desolate. The north and east winds must be bleak there for 
three fourths of the year. Who lives there? Is their isolation 
from their fellow-men as complete as their home is lonely ? I 
have often searched the darkness of evening for the lighted 
windows, when the fogs were rolling in from the sea, and fan- 
cied it a beacon for the direction of benighted travellers over 
the marshes.” 

They had reached the bridge of the second river on the route, 
and her voice, less guarded than when she spoke of her mother’s 
malady, arose above the duller rumbling of the wheels to the 
ear of an old gentleman sitting in front of her. 

“ If you knew the real character of its inmates. Miss Barry,, 
you would rather liken it to a wrecker’s lantern,” he said, looking 
over his shoulder at her. “ The owner and tenant of the de- 
sirable abode is one of the most disreputable of that by no 
means reputable class, horse jockeys. He combines the character 
of horse trader, trainer, farrier, sportsman, and swindler general; 
Latterly he has tapped a lucrative vein, either upon the race- 
course or at the card-table. His tumble-down house has been 
patched and painted into a show of decency, and he dresses like 
a Bowery swell. He brags of a considerable legacy already 
pocketed, and other and larger expectations, which last, he in- 
sinuates, will be fulfilled in a manner that will make all Krawen 
stare. Nothing stands between him and vast wealth and social 
eminence, he says, except the life of one old man, who is totter- 
ing upon the brink of the grave. You can credit as much or 
as little as you like of this remarkable tale. Dr. Suydam. I 
repeat it as I heard it from his lips in the waiting-room of the 
Water Street Depot not a fortnight since.” 

“ He is a despicable scoundrel ! ” broke forth Louis ; then, 
recollecting himself, pulled up his temper sharply. 

“ I ought not to wish that his expectations should be disap- 
pointed,” said Frank. Yet I shall be sorry when the house 
is closed. It is, to me, an engaging feature in a monotonous 
landscape.” 


256 


ruby’s husband. 


She did not comprehend the heightened color of her escort, 
nor the sullen glow of his eyes, when they left their seat and 
mingled with the throng streaming towards the Kroywen Ferry. 
Perhaps in her own mental disquiet she did not reflect upon his 
altered demeanor, as her benevolent disposition would have led 
her at another time to do. At any rate, she walked silently 
beside him through the ferry gates and upon the steamboat 
lying at the wharf, and, while awaiting the moment of depar- 
ture, leaned, still silently, over the guards, gazing down into the 
murky waves, which even under the blue June heavens were 
of the lively hue popularly known as London smoke. 

Withdrawing her gaze, as the spokes of the paddle-wheels 
upon the water jarred the boat, she accosted her companion 
with some unimportant remark. lie did not hear her. His 
undivided attention was given to a couple who stood just with- 
^ out the door of the ladies’ cabin. 'One of them was Bogart 
Veddar. The other was a lady above the middle height, very 
<• beautiful, and dashingly attired. She leaned against the outer 
wall of the saloon, tracing invisible diagrams upon the floor 
with the point of her lace parasol, coquettish dimples coming 
and going about her cherry-red mouth. Her exquisite com- 
plexion, the rare coloring of her .hair, and her almost faultless 
features, drew from ingenuous Frank an involuntary exclamation 
of pleasure. 

“ What a handsome woman ! ” she said. “ Do you know 
her?” 

“ Very slightly,” returned. Louis, with a disagreeable smile. 
“ I used to call her an acquaintance, but times have changed, 
and we with them.” 

“ Pardon me. I did not mean to be inquisitive. Her ap- 
pearance is so attractive that I could not but notice h.er.” 

“You think her attractive ? I should not have thought hers 
the style of beauty that would please you. But she is consid- 
ered, as you say, very handsome.” 

“ Mr. Veddar certainly thinks so,” responded Frank, archly. 

Louis had already noted the dandy’s show of devotion, and 


ruby’s husband. 


257 


Ruby’s pleased reception of it. Neither had cast a look in 
his direction. Pie could not determine, watch them as he 
might, whether or not they were aware in whose neighborhood 
they were. Nick’s visit and pitiful story of her declining 
health were then another of her ruses for breaking down his 
resolution* of continued separation until she should grant him 
leave to announce their marriage ; another application of the 
screw that was to extort money from his com'passion'or sense 
of honor. If he had never despised her before, he did noAv, 
heartily and bitterly, as he divined what were the convolutions 
of her scheme. She contemplated a gay campaign at Saratoga ; 
and having overrun the very liberal allowance he made her, 
had written the plaintive little note, and instructed her father 
to follow it up by representations of her declining health and 
spirits. Plaving received the timely remittance, and her hus- 
band’s promise of a visit the next day, she had hurried off to 
town for an afternoon’s shopping. Plump as a November 
partridge, and ruddy as tha heart of a cabbage-rose, she was 
to-day. If this accidental encounter had not taken place, he 
would have beheld her, at his professional call, languid and 
pallid, propped by pillows upon her sofa. 

A thrilling thought ran through Louis’s mind in reviewing 
the list of deceptions of which he had been the victim — thrill- 
ing as tempting. 

“ This is not the woman I married, but an impostor, without 
mercy and without shame ; a bold speculator upon my love and 
integrity. What law, human or divine, enforces my constancy 
to her, my acknowledgment of her pretensions? She whom 
I loved and wooed was a guileless, tender creature, pure in 
heart and in imagination as I believe this girl at my side 
to be.” 

His eye strayed from the lush charms o.f the one — ‘her 
silk dress that might have been daguerreotyped as an extrav- 
aganza of the reigning fashion ; her lace shawl, draped loosely 
upon her arnls and trailing to the dirty floor; her summer 
bonnet of white crape, overloaded without by a bunch of 
17 


/ 


258 


ruby’s husband. 


grapes and one of wheat — currants and striped grass inside, 
as if they had been forced into bloom by the warmth of her 
auburn frizettes ; her white parasol, covered with black lace, 
shading her laughing eyes — to the open, serious face of the 
other ; her travelling suit, dress and mantle of silver gray pop- 
lin, her straw hat and wreath of ivy leaves, some of the more 
tender shoots creeping to the shelter of the brim, and hiding in 
the brown waves of her hair ; and the patience he had en- 
throned as his guiding principle wdien affection perished, for- 
sook him. 

He had made his last attempt, six months before, to win 
Ruby to the adoption of his plan of confession and submission 
to the penalty of their folly. He had vowed then never to 
renew his request. He added to this, now, the fiery protest 
of his soul against the entrance of this woman into any home 
that might hereafter own him as master. She was no wife of 
his, nor ever should be. If riches should be his, he would tell 
her to name her price and be gone. He would be free, if she 
beggared him. Her god was money, and with it he would 
purchase her silence, and buy back the name she would sully 
by wearing. A very Shylock he knew her to be, but he would 
throw his wealth into the sea, burn his homestead over his 
head, before she should enjoy either as his wife. She would 
never seek to ally herself with a pauper. ' 

The boat rebounded from the city pier with a force that dis- 
turbed his equilibrium, and, recovering himself by grasping the 
railing, he had a glimpse of Ruby’s and Veddar’s reciprocal 
smile of amusement at the slight mishap. He saw more. Less 
abstracted in thought than he, from what was passing about 
them, they were prepared for the shock, and sustained it grace- 
fully. Yet Ruby deemed it expedient to throw out her hand in 
a pretty helpless gesture, and Veddar to seize it with as spon- 
taneous an impulse of protection. He relinquished it instantly, 
but the action was a link in the band of an acquaintanceship 
that was fast assuming the guise of intimacy. 

In leaving the boat, she jostled Louis by a seeming misstep. 


ruby’s husband. 


259 


Excuse me,” she said, formally. 

He raised liis hat in mock respect. 

“ Please accept my congratulations upon your sudden res- 
toration to health, and allow me to retract my promise of 
professional service.” 

Frank lost the hurried words, but the tone gave her an un- 
pleasant sensation. It must have been the vehicle of a gibe 
or taunt, and she was loath to believe that Dr. Suydam would 
address either to a lady. Directly afterwards she heard the 
voice of the beautiful unknown behind her in conversation with 
Veddar. It was less sweet and soft than one would have ex- 
pected after seeing her face, and had the pert inflections of a 
school girl. 

“ Who could have slandered me so grossly?” she asked, with 
an aflTected laugh, louder than a genuine lady would have given 
in a crowded thoroughfare. 

“ You condemn it as a groundless charge — do you? ” queried 
Veddar. “ It has cost me more hours of painful thought than 
anything else I have heard in an age. I can hardly credit your 
denial.” 

He would not dare, conceited fop as he was, to talk in that 
familiar strain to one whom his despot. Society, bade him re- 
spect, Frank knew. Who was this woman at whom Dr. Suydam 
sneered to her face, and whom Veddar insulted yet more by his 
fulsome flatteries ? She was within hearing again after a mo- 
ment’s separation from them by the living tide setting down one 
side of the paved sidewalk and up the other. 

“What form of oath shall I employ to convince you that 
whoever reported to you that I was married was guilty of a 
malicious falsehood ? ” she said, in a higher key. 

“ That stamps her unmistakably as one of the demi-monde^^* 
thought Frank, glancing, before she reflected what she was 
doing, at her companion. 

Months afterwards she recollected the strange expression with 
which Louis looked down at herself — the blended wrath and 
triumph that lighted up a demoniacal fire in his eyes. 


260 


ruby’s husband. 


“ What is your destination in this great Babylon which Mam- 
mon hath builded ? ” he inquired, in reckless gayety. 

She named the street. 

“ We cannot do better, then, than to take seats in that stage,’* 
signalling the driver. 

It was empty, the stream of travel at that hour not tending 
up town. They got in, and, in their deliberate progress, had 
more than one view of Veddar and his companion sauntering in 
the same direction with themselves, apparently engrossed in a 
lively flirtation. 

“ There is one other matter I have wanted to talk to you 
about,” Frank said, by and by, timidly, for the aspect of her 
medical friend was not favorable to confidential communication. 

lie unbent instantly from the gloomy taciturnity that had 
succeeded to his flash of playfulness. 

“ What is it?” he asked, kindly. 

“ Your mother is urgent in her solicitations that mine shall 
accompany her to Cape May or Nahant this summer. Is the 
plan judicious? ” 

“ Nothing could be less prudent. She should go to some 
rural boarding-house in a mountainous district. She gets too 
much sea air where she is, and sees too much company.” 

“But how shall I prevail upon her to do this? She has a 
horror of -^olitude. An incessant round of engagements is, 
she thinks, necessary to her existence. She would regard the 
seclusion you recommend as exile from all that makes life 
pleasant.” 

“ Make up a party,” proposed Louis. “ I cannot plume my- 
self upon any influence with my motli^ but with my father I 
possess a little. I will exert that to advance your design. He 
is feebler of late than I like to see him. Like some other de- 
luded people, he has great faith in my prescriptions, I will 
advisfe mountain air, fresh butter and brown bread to him. 
Wherever he goes, my mother must, perforce, accompany him, 
and we can trust her to do her utmost to drag Mrs. Barry into 
banishment with her.” 


ruby’s husband. 


261 


“ lie is very kind,’’ mused Frank, when he had set her 
down at the store where the indispensable shade of floss was 
to be obtained. “ A great comfort and stay to me in my trial. 
Yet I wish he had not known that beautiful girl — or that, 
knowing her, he had not spoken to her in that jeering tone. 
It was the only action I have ever remarked in him that was 
not altogether gentlemanly.” 


262 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

As Louis had expected and hoped, a note from Frank was 
brought to him the next morning while he was at breakfast. 
Anxious though he was to examine the contents, he noted in 
opening it, as^ characteristic of the writer, the thick, firm, 
English paper, and the clear, legible chirography, each letter 
roundly distinct in the midst of the agitation that had moved 
her to set down the brief sentences. 

“ My dear Dr. Suydam : 

“ My mother has consented to all we wish. I never knew 
until last night what a good mother she is ; how much she 
loves me. She was sadly worn out when our conference was 
over. I sat with her until three o’clock, administering seda- 
tives, and sustaining her resolution with such hopes as I could 
conscientiously hold up for her cheer. I spoke sincerely when 
I told her that, in my judgment, the most formidable obstacle 
to her recovery was removed by her heroic determination to 
submit herself to the guidance of those who had the will and 
the ability to subdue the disease. She slept at last. She has 
not yet awakened. I believe she will keep the promise wrung 
from her by my entreaties. But I dread the effect of suspense 
upon her nervous system. Please inform me by the bearer of 
this at what hour you, with Dr. Milnor, can see her. In mercy 
to her and to me do not let it be later than noon. I am afraid 
I am childish in my impatience, but this has been a long and 
weary waiting to me. Sincerely your friend, 

Frank Barry.” 


ruby’s husband. 


203 


The messenger returned to the daughter with a note of three 
lines, to the effect that Drs. Milnor and Suydam w^ould wait 
upon Mrs. Barry at twelve o’clock that day. Whereupon, a 
vast deal of strategetical talent was expended by Mrs. Barry 
in clearing the house of all the servants except the cook, who, 
from the seat of her dominion in the lower story, was not likely 
to play the spy upon her mistress and her visitors. To the 
lady’s own maid had been granted a holiday that she might 
visit her mother in the country, and the chambermaid was 
sent along as company. 

“And take the carriage, my faithful girls — why not?” 
said the good mistress. “ I have it in my mind to give you 
one little fete. Take the one-horse carriage, and John shall 
drive you to the cottage of your mother. But return to-night.” 

Profoundly mystified, but very willing to take advantage of 
her generosity, the trio had departed in great glee, and the 
coast 'was clear, Frank being stationed by the window, as the 
appointed hour drew near, to prevent the doctors from ringing. 
Mrs. Barry had the undoubted right to receive -w^hatever gen- 
tlemen she pleased in any room of her mansion, and her inti- 
macy 'v\dth the Suydams was too well understood to cause any 
remark among her domestics at an event so simple and natural 
as a call from Dr. Suydam and his partner. But it suited 
her melodramatic taste to manoeuvre and plot, and Frank 
indulged her in the harmless caprice. 

The latter received the physicians wdth gentle composure, 
thanked them for their punctuality, and led the way at once 
to her mother’s boudoir. 

This apartment "was a model of French taste. Pink cur- 
tains, softened by white muslin, adorned the windows, and were 
looped about the frame of a tall mirror, which filled one re- 
cessed end of the long, narrow room. The chairs wore white 
linen covers, tied with tufts of pink ribbon ; the carpet was a 
'white ground, with bunches of moss-rose buds dropped here 
and there upon it, and on a sno'vx’y lounge lay Mrs. Barry, in 
a wrapper of India muslin lined with pink silk ; her morning 


264 


ruby’s husband. 


cap trimmed with rosettes of pink ribbon. In her hand was a 
fan composed entirely of downy white feathers, arranged in- 
geniously upon a carved ivory handle, from which depended 
a pink cord and tassel. In perfect keeping with the ruling law 
of tints, her forehead, chin, nose — all of her face excepting 
the tops of her cheek bones — were very white, and these 
were very pink. 

She arose upon her elbow, and held out a chill, shaking 
hand to the two gentlemen. 

“ You are kind, my dear friends, to humor the fantasy of the 
little one here — to act with me in the pretty farce ! Dr. Mil- 
nor, when we were young — you and I — the young girls had 
not such vagaries, and the mothers — ah ! they were less com- 
plaisant. I succumb, that I may have the peace I love bet- 
ter than my own will. ‘^My child,’ I have said, ‘ let them 
come, to the end that thou mayst be confounded ; be made to 
blush for thy silly alarms.’ She would infect me with her fears 
had I the judgment less excellent.” 

Dr. Milnor, as chief physician, said a few polite words in 
extenuation of the daughter’s solicitude, and commendation of 
the parent’s judgment and freedom from hypochondriacal illu- 
sions. Then he glided adroitly into inquiries, at first general, 
then minute, respecting her supposed malady. These Mrs. 
Barry parried lightly and civilly. She had no memory for 
disagreeables. The little misadventure at the Carnival had 
given her amusement at the time, and then been forgotten in 
the enchantments of the scene. Such a rare Carnival as that 
was! It lived in her mind still — a joy forever. The inci- 
dent of the blow might or might not have some connection 
with the discomfort she now experienced occasionally from 
what — she evaded the vulgar word “ pimple,” by describing as 
a “ louton the most insignificant.” As to the character and 
duration of the pains, she could say next to nothing. They 
were disagreeables — and she made it a point never to dwell in 
recollection or conversation upon them. The little one, there, 
was the soul of method in thought and circumstantiality in 


ruby’s husband. 


265 


speech. The volatile mother referred the learned inquisitor to 
her for information. Having thus rid herself of all responsi- 
bility in the uninteresting affair, she lay back upon her ruffled 
pillows and fanned herself, looking amiably bored. 

Between the doctor and his referee, the verbal examination 
was gotten quickly over, and the former next hinted delicately 
at the necessity that the injured spot should be inspected. 
Without blush or falter, Frank knelt at her mother’s side, 
and undid the brooch confining her wrapper at the throat, 
when a strange, swift change swept over the patient’s face — 
the only really natural expression Louis had ever seen there. 
With a look of terror, appeal, and bashfulness, she clutched 
her daughter’s hand. 

“ Frank ! Never ! ” 

“ For my sake, mamma ! As you love your children ! 
And it may be nothing after all,” said the girl, lovingly. 

She detached the clinging fingers from her own, and by a 
dexterous movement drew aside the muslin veil. 

Scarcely three inches below the collar-bone, prominent by 
reason of the extreme emaciation of the whole frame, ap- 
peared a swelling irregular in shape, slightly reddish in hue, 
and extremely sensitive to the touch, — for the patient became 
greenish sallow, and gasped with faintness, as the light, prac- 
tised finger of the physician made the experiment. A minute 
sufficed for all the tests he desired to apply ; then he announced 
the conclusion of the examination, and raised himself to an 
upright posture. While Frank adjusted the disordered neck- 
dress, he exchanged a meaning glance with his associate. Louis 
telegraphed a rapid reply with his eyes and a very slight move- 
ment of the head. 

The senior doctor hemmed reassuringly before conveying 
their united opinion to the ladies. 

“ Dr. Suydam agrees with me in thinking that there will be 
no occasion to subject you to the pain and danger of an opera- 
tion, my dear madam. Nor need we trouble you with much 
medicine or many rules. We rest our hopes upon the recu- 


266 


ruby’s husband. 


perative energies of Nature, assisting her so far as we can by 
sanitary regulations — change of air, freedom from excitement, 
and the like.” ** 

It was not easy to preserve his blandly unconcerned demeanor 
now that Frank had moved to the back of the sofa, and stood 
there, her large gray eyes, deeper and darker than they usually 
were under her knitted brows, fixed upon his. The scrutiny 
made him restless. Mrs. Barry’s flippant interruption was 
opportune for him. 

“ Eh, well, then ! ” she cried, shrilly, lifting her fan at arm’s 
length to screen her daughter’s face. “ You hear, you blush ! 
I will conceal your confusion ! And, another time, is it not 
that you will believe? Your spectre is a wreath of mist. Your 
nightmare is a bagatelle. Your tragedy — it is comedy the 
most absurd ! ” 

“No one can rejoice more truly than I in the hope that this 
is so, dear mother.” 

Frank’s hand stole caressingly down to her mother’s cheek, 
but her eyes did not leave the doctor’s face. 

“ The hope that this is so ! ” mimicked Mrs. Barry. “ The 
doctor — has he not said it? / are you still infidel ? Did 

Ave not agree to abide by his decree ? ” 

“ I shall do it,” responded Frank, seriously. “ Gentlemen, 
let me thank you in my mother’s name, and -mine, for your kind 
compliance with my wishes. I have all confidence in your 
skill and judgment. I am sure you will do all that can be 
done for her.” 

She attended them to the landing outside the door of the 
boudoir Avhen they had made their adieus to Mrs. Barry. 

“You will let me know all soon?” she said to Louis, in her 
direct fashion. 

“ I will call this evening.” 

He appended no word of cheer or promise to allay the con- 
suming anxiety that clouded her eyes into blackness. Assua- 
sives and anodynes suited some Avomen, but he Avould not ofler 
them to her. Nor did Dr. Milnor. He only bent his gray 


ruby’s husband. 


267 


head before her in courtesy that had in it an indefinable min- 
gling of respect for her sorrow, and Louis gave the hand laid in 
his one strong, warm pressure before they went down the steps 
together. 

In the street, the elder partner asked, “ Is she an own 
daughter ? ” 

She is.” 

“ And a splendid woman — is she not?” 

“You are right.” 

“ Poor child ! ” 

To which Louis answered nothing. 

But that evening he told her all. The case was hopeless. 
The means Dr. Milnor had mentioned might mitigate the 
-severity of certain symptoms, and retard to some extent, the 
advance of the destroyer. Sooner or later the fatal end must 
come. The deadly thing had struck deep roots into the system, 
and was neither to be charmed from its fastness by medicaments, 
or dug out by the scalpel. The patient might live for many 
months should Nature, make a valiant fight for the mastery, 
but the inroads of Death would nevertheless go on until his 
victory 'was complete. 

Louis’s manner of setting forth the inevitable, if more 
guarded and gradual than the above statement, was explicit 
and courageous. lie had gained in moral courage since the 
day when Ruby’s blandishments and Mrs. Sloane’s flatteries 
smothered conscience, and made him throw' up the reins to 
passion and the pleasure of the hour. He was no fondly 
foolish boy now, but a sad, stern, self-concentrated man. Yet 
the recollection of the task before him had oppressed him all 
the afternoon, and bowed heart and will to weakness when he 
met Frank face to face, and read inquiry and dread in her 
eyes ; in the peculiar bend of her brow that was not a frown, 
while it drew the eyebrows closer together, and gave depth and 
darkness to the eyes ; and in the momentary quiver of the mouth, 
controlled before she trusted herself to utter a syllable. 

She heard him through without interruption. When he ceased" 


•'2G8 


ruby’s HUSBAf^D. 


to speak, she hid her face upon the arm of the sofa, and was 
still for so long he had begun to fear that she was unconscious, 
when a broken murmur stole upon the silence. 

“ The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and 
that which I was afraid of is come unto me. I was not in 
safety ; neither had I rest, neither was I quiet ; yet trouble 
came ! ” 

She had forgotten his presence. ♦ He. could say nothing to 
alleviate her distress, yet he could not leave her in her deso- 
lation. When the wrung spirit had struggled through the 
spasm, she might have need of his sympathy or counsel. So 
he staid. When Frank lifted her head she saw him near 
her, every line of his grave features softened by pity and 
wistfulness, watching for some token that she was ready to 
avail herself of his services. . ' 

“ I wish I could help you, Frank.” 

The ejaculation moved the listener as studied phrases of 
condolence could not have done. Great tears rolled down her 
cheeks as she replied, — 

“ You w'ould if you could. It comforts me to be assured 
of that. I am very weak to-night. Th^ day has been a 
hard one. But now I know the worst, I shall have strength 
given me to meet the needs even of this day. I am glad you 
did not leave me. I have many questions to ask you. My 
poor mother! Is it best that she should be told the truth 
at once?” 

Louis thought not. Mrs. Barry was miserably weak and ex- 
citable. The healthful influences of her summer’s rest would 
probably tone her mind and nerves, if not improve her con- 
dition in other respects. They would lose nothing, and pos- 
sibly gain much, by delaying the communication for Uvo or three 
months. He did not tell her of a further possibility, namely — 
that the advance of the disease in that period might prepare the 
deluded victim for the reception of the intelligence that her days 
were numbered. 

“ Yet,” he said, as he arose to go, “ it seems a cruel decree 
that condemns you to sustain this burden alone.” 


ruby’s husband. 


269 


She looked so young and helpless, with her slender figure 
and pale face, that the expression escaped him unawares. 

A smile, born somewhere behind the dark clouds that had 
begloomed her eyes, broke slowly and sweetly over her counte- 
nance, from brow to lips. 

“Alone ! None of the Father’s children can ever be that ! 
Do not be troubled about me.” 

“ She is a good woman, sir ! ” said Louis, in describing the 
scene to his father. 

Frank wished that Mr. Suydam should be admitted to their 
confidence. Mrs. Suydam’s discretion, in her intercourse witli 
her afflicted friend, was adjudged by father and son to be ques- 
tionable, and she was not to be en^ghtened as to the nature of 
the disease unless Mrs. Barry should herself intrust her with 
the secret. 

“ A good woman ! You may well say it. She is enough to 
redeem the sex ; and, between ourselves, my ftoy, they need re- 
demption ! It is lucky that one finds once in a lifetime siuL 
an offset to the rest as this girl ! ” 


270 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER XX. 

The summer retreat selected for the invalid and her party 
was among a chain of picturesque hills lying to the north-west 
of Krawen, and yclept mountains by the dwellers near the sea. 
The traveller commenced the ascent of the outermost of these 
by the time he cleared the outskirts of the city in that direction, 
and climbing one after another of 4hat appeared to be merely 
respectable heights, was amazed at the beauty, extent, and va- 
riety of the scene stretching around him before he left the town 
ten miles behind. The glittering sea line bounded the eastern 
horizon, and on a fair day the naked eye could discern the 
white wings of the ships departing from and nearing the Bab- 
ylon of the continent, the spires, towers, and roofs of which 
lay packed in solid masses to the north of the less extensive, 
but in its nearness, more beautiful city of Krawen. Between 
this and the spectator' arose row upon row, green and grace- 
ful, hills studded with villas and cottages, the homes of a vast 
suburban population, holding communication with the great 
pulsing heart on the seaboard through the iron veins threading 
the valleys and piercing the rocks in every direction save ocean- 
ward. Beyond — assuming his position to be upon the ridge 
in the neighborhood of the town — was a pleasing succession of 
higher eminences, still verdant with cultivated fields and for- 
ests, intersected by many a romantic vale and flashing stream, 
and divided into farms and townships. Every farm had its 
cluster of buildings, the white dwelling and red, gray or brown 
barns and out-houses, and in the centre of each township a 
steady white arm was stretched towards heaven. 


ruby’s husband. 


271 


The Suydam-Barry clique secured all the available spare 
room in a spacious farm-house twenty miles from the city in 
the very heart of the modest mountain cluster. The residents 
of the homestead were kindly country-folk — father, mother, 
daughter, and son, who contented themselves with looking dili- 
gently after the temporal wants of their lodgers, and never 
interfered with their occupations or pastimes. The long, hot 
days, if poor in stirring incident, were less tedious than the 
elder ladies had predicted they Avould prove. The drives were 
fine and varied ; there were good boating in the broad, clear 
river bounding one edge of the farm, and pleasant rambles 
among the hills and in the woods. They had their own car- 
riage and Frank’s pony phaeton, and a wagon load of books — 
treatises, poems, and romances. But the godsend, par emi- 
nence, to the entire party, wms the arrival, the second week of 
their rustication, of Mrs. Barry’s youngest son. Lieutenant Paul 
Barry, U. S. N., a handsome young fellow of five-and-twenty, 
whose blue eyes and fair hair made him resemble Sue Avhen he 
laughed, which wms often, and wdiose firm mouth and broad 
forehead reminded everybody that he was Frank’s brother 
when he talked seriously and sensibly, which he could do upon 
occasion. 

It had been arranged that Louis should have a fortnight’s 
leave of absence in August, ostensibly to recruit his energies 
after a whole year’s hard w’ork, his real motive, as expressed 
to his father and his partner, being that he might w'atch the 
progress of Mrs. Barry’s malady, and apply such checks as were 
within the reach of the profession. Paul’s coming had preceded 
liis by a week, and the twm were mutually attracted tow'ards 
intimacy. 

“ This sort of life is making me young again,” said Louis, 
as the party gathered one afternoon upon the lawn in front of 
]Mrs. Barry’s apartments. 

The day w as w-^arm, not sultry ; for a stream of pure air 
flowed dowm upon them through a rent in the mountain range, 
rustling the leaves of the giant walnut tree under wdiich they 

...I 


272 


ruby’s husband. 


made their sitting-room, while the thick foliage shut out the 
sun, except as it sifted through the boughs in stray smiles, 
crowning first one head, then another, with transient halos, 
strewing jewels among the folds of the ladies’ dresses, or drop- 
ping fairy coins upon the short grass. Mrs. Barry and Mrs. 
Suydam had their embroidery, the latter diversifying the play 
of her needle by a few minutes of fan exercise, when the 
treacherous moisture excited by the heat endangered the integ- 
rity of bismuth and carmine. With all her enthusiasm of de- 
light with this “ sylvan solitude,” and her vigorous assumption 
of rural habits, such as early dinners, and bread-aud-milk sup- 
pers eaten from a porringer, she remitted not one stroke of her 
powder-pufiT or rouge-brush — studied the eflfect of her toilet as 
assiduously as if the congregated ton of Krawen and “ dear de- 
lightful Paris ” were to sit in judgment upon it when com- 
pleted. Her costume, this afternoon, was laboriously simple — 
a white Nainsook wrapper, with a muslin head-piece d la pay- 
sanne ; but the fluted rufiles running arou^ neck and wrists 
and down the front of the gown were of the finest Valenciennes 
lace, as w^ere those edging the lappets of her cap. Her fan ^vas 
of carved wood — a curiosity she had picked up at Geneva, the 
outer sticks being oddly illuminated in semi-barbaric taste. 
Lounging chairs and sofas had been sent up fiom town for the 
accommodation of the citizens ; but these Mrs. Barry surveyed 
with disdain after she had once inhaled the scent of new-mown 
hay, and sat upon a heap of the same. At her solicitation tlie 
farmer’s son, grinning in his sleeve the while, had “ dumped ” 
several wheelbarrow loads of the fragrant grass at the root of 
the walnut, and Paul or Louis tossed this up every afternoon 
into such shape as suited her whim, prior to the bestowal of 
herself and redundant draperies upon the primitive couch. 
Her afihctations, which were synonymous with absurdities, 
provoked no adverse criticism from her immediate circle. To 
Mrs. Suydam the wildest of these were charming eccentricities, 
l^aul added to Frank’s indulgent respect for their mother’s 
fancies the chivalric tenderness of a son for a parent who had 


ruby’s husband. 


273 


always indulged him. To Louis her fooleries were pathetic, 
as witnessed in the light of his knowledge of her true condition, 
wliife Mr. Suydam had grown strangely charitable in his private 
strictures upon her behavior, and polite in his deportment to 
her. Wilfully, or in the surpassing credulity of vanity, she 
misinterpreted the attention bestowed upon and forbearance ‘ 
exercised towards her, and accepted the station awarded her as 
chief of the little coterie with childish exultation. 

Mrs. Suydam occupied a fauteuil brought from her home 
boudoir. Frank had her low sewing-chair, and Mr. Suydam his 
favorite seat — the heirloom with the carved elbows, and legs, 
and leathern cushions. Louis preferred the broad stone door- 
step to any other resting-place, and Paul lay at half length upon 
the turf, his curly head in his sister’s lap. 

“ Put down that tiresome stitching, Frank ! ” he had ordered, 
in saucy imperfousness, in selecting this pillow. “ I am perish- 
ing for the want of petting.” 

“ It is well the^lack you mention is not fatal to all constitu- 
tions,” said Louis, dryly. 

lie was thinking of his own unpetted infancy and loveless 
youth, but the light-hearted sailor perceived no covert meaning 
in the reply. 

“ It is fortunate, as you say, that it is, as the coffee-drinker 
confessed, at ninety-five, of his beloved beverage, a very slow 
poison ; yet it is a deadly complaint, nevertheless. A sort of 
heart-cancer, you understand, that eats out life by inches. You 
needn’t look so lugubrious, Frank, darling. I am reviving rap- 
idly under your treatment.” 

Said treatment, at that instant, being a caressing manipula- 
tion of his head and face by the softest and coolest of finger 
tips. Other rejoinder not being ready, she pulled both his ears 
at once, as an effectual and wholesome distraction of his ideas, 
and Louis, with an audible inhalation of the summer breeze, 
projected into the conversation, as an additional means of diver- 
siouy the exclamation recorded a while ago, — 

“ This sort of life is making me young again.” 

18 


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ruby’s husband. 


“ Hear ! ” cried Mrs. Barry, volubly. “ Behold the sexage- 
nai’itan hlase ! the foiled of fortune, of fame, of love ! Where, 
then, are the gray hairs, the wrinkles, the eyes all bleared and 
dim, the frame bowed with grief and years ? ” 

“ His sentimental sigh over departed youth reminds me of the 
concealed agonies of a callow swain — a middy, who once made 
me the confidant of a love affair that had terminated disastrously 
for him,” remarked Paul. “ He cried like a baby from the 
beginning to the end of the pitiful tale, unintelligible at times 
because of his excessive snivelling. ‘The heartless world sup — 
supposes,’ sobbed he, in conclusion, ‘ be — because I bear up 
like a man, and hide the f — fox gnawing at my vitals, that I am 
the g — gayest of the gay, and I would d — die before I would 
betray any emotion ; but, B — Barry, I hi — hi — eed imuarclly ! * 
And to prove how inwardly, he blubbered aloud like a mother- 
less calf — as he was, I believe.” 

“ As I don’t mean to do ! ” laughed Louis, “ even over the 
ashes of my four-and-twenty dead and buried years. There is 
not one of them I would live over again, unless I might have 
the power to change the complexion of it entirely ; not an ex- 
perience I would review, unless I could shape it in accordance 
with the teachings of maturcr experience and knowledge.” 

“ That proves, beyond a peradventure, that you have never 
been in love,” said Paul, pensively. “ I was once.” 

“ For how long?” queried Frank, pinching his cheek. 

“ For a week. I was two days falling into the trance, four 
days and a half in the height of delirium, and half a day com- 
ing out. Seven days, all told.” 

“ A brief attack,” remarked Louis. 

“ True, doctor, but awfully violent. My heart has been 
paralyzed ever since. Yet I mean to marry, some day, all 
the same. And when I do, I shall w^ed some divine crea- 
ture, who understands the science of petting as well as you do, 
Frank, girl.” 

' . “ If you do not love her, you will not care to have her pet 
you,” rejoined his sister, her fingers busy with his chestnut 
curls. 


ruby’s husband. 


275 


“ That shows how much, or how little, you know about men’s 
natures, you conceited monkey ! The admiration of the eye 
for blonde ringlets, melting blue orbs, nectarine cheeks, and 
strawberry lips, and the cuticular enjoyment of the friction of 
velvety fingers upon one’s scalp and along one’s sun-burned 
visage, is one thing, and this sublimated abstraction, the 
coalescing of two souls into one — very soft souls they must 
be, by the way ! — over which poets and novel writers go wild 
and their disciples daft, is another. Until a man nears his 
five-and-twenties, his heart resembles nothing else so much as 
a jelly-fish — barring the coldness and want of pulsation. It 
liquefies at the lowest temperature of Cupid’s furnace. After- 
wards, the crust forms, and he oftener than otherwise changes 
into a petrifaction.” 

Frank put her hand over his mouth, at which application he 
rolled up his eyes in comic transport, and lay still. 

“ Your jelly-fish is hardly a moral free agent,” replied Louis. 
“ Yet a man’s ' whole after-life is often colored by actions com- 
mitted before the period you have named.” 

“ Pre-cisely ! ” Paul pushed by the pretty gag to say. 
“ Therefore, were I a legislator, I would pronounce all con- 
tracts matrimonial entered into before that time null and void. 
Give a fellow a chance in life, I say ! When he does ripen into 
rationality, let him rub out and begin again.” 

“ You are a veritable Turk, an infidel, a monster ! ” said his 
mother, reaching over to slap him with her fan. “ You would 
subvert the foundations of society ; destroy all the poesy of life ; 
make the sweet dreams of youth to be idiocy — madness the 
most irresponsible ! ” 

“ As they are, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of 
a thousand,” uttered Louis, gloomily emphatic. 

Paul raised his lazy head to get a better, view of the last 
speaker. 

“ Hey-day ! Have I made a convert?” 

“ I should be sorry if you had, madcap,” answered his sister, 
earnestly, when she would fain have seemed playful. “ Such 


276 


ruby’s husband. 


pernicious heresy, which in your case is rank apostasy, should 
be frowned down by everybody who has a heart, or who ever 
had one.’’ 

“ Bravo ! ” Mr. Suydam clapped his hands softly. “ Well 
spoken for your sex and your kind. Apropos to youth and 
youthful illusions, are we to hear nothing of Pendennis this 
afternoon ? ” 

Louis brought the book which had furnished them with enter* 
tdinment for several days past, Frank being reader. A more 
judicious selection could hardly have been made. Her clear, 
round tones, her distinct enunciation and spirited elocution, 
made the hours devoted to this recreation seasons of genuine 
enjoyment. 

“ It is unaccountable to me that you should like Thackeray,” 
Louis had said to Frank the day before. V- His trenchant 
satire, the sorrowful sneer that breaks up through every third 
paragraph in passages that would else be honest in their pathos 
or tenderness, in their denunciation of the false and apprecia- 
tion* of the true, should, it seems to me, repel a nature like 
yours, however well they may suit me.” 

“ I do not enjoy him,” returned she, candidly. “ The finest 
flavor of his humor is to me like that of bitter almonds — a 
deadly aromatic. His good people move our hearts less by 
their virtues than they excite our contempt by their foibles, 
while in proportion to the strength of character in his dramatis 
-personoe is the dominion of evil in their natures. Helen Pen- 
denuis is a feeble-minded pietist, who, while she loves one man, 
marries another to secure a home, and whose influence over the 
son she idolizes is continually imperilled by her short-sighted 
lolly. Thackeray never knew a true-hearted, noble woman. 
Laura is his best portrait of such a one, and this is done in 
pale water-colors.” 

The major portion of the company, however, enjoyed the 
story. The worldly-wise elder women appreciated the etchings ' 
of fashionable life, English and Continental. Mr. Suvdam 
smiled grimly over the sayings and doings of that battered 


ruby’s husband. 


277 


rake and solemn slave of fashion, Major Pendennis. Paul 
applauded to the echo the clever hits at pseudo-sentimentality 
and other popular shams, while Louis, catching the almost 
spent sound of the sigh under the sarcasm, penetrating the 
secret of the heartache under the royal vesture, took to his 
own unquiet spirit the balm of consciousness that others had 
trusted and been betrayed, had risked and lost all, yet held 
lip in the world’s sight unhacked and lofty crests ever after- 
wards. Once he glanced up from the volui;ne of trout-flies 
he was arranging, and caught the reader’s eye. His gleamed 
with mischievous amusement ; hers fell back disconc^erted to 
the page which treated of the brief, stormy, and undignified 
scene between Pen and Laura, just after the former had learned, 
through Fanny Bolton’s ill-spelled note, of the summary dis- 
mission of the pprter’s pretty daughter from his (Pen’s) sick 
chamber. Laura’s admirer could no longer complain that her 
portrait was painted in faintly. In fact, that hitherto demure 
and tender maiden came out too strongly in this interview, for 
Frank’s taste, although, as the turn of the leaf showed, not so 
shrewishly as to damp the flame of George Warrington’s secret 
adoration. 

“ ‘ Why shouldn’t she love him ? ’ muttered the honest fellow ^ 
to himself. ‘ Whom else would I have her love ? What can 
she be to me but the dearest, and the hiirest, and the best of 
women ? ’ ” 

Louis, albeit not quite ready to subscribe to the fidelity of 
George’s description of his unacknowledged lady-love, yet felt, 
ill his turn, a shade of mortification that he should resign her, 
readily and unreservedly, to a coxcomb, who, whatever miglit 
be George’s friendship for him, Avas plainly unworthy of; the 
affection of Helen’s adopted daughter, while he wore Fanny 
Bolton’s colors, and ran a tilt with his own mother in defence 
of that forward and foolish damsel. 

The next chapter Avas one of the feAV that exonerate^the au- 
thor from the charge of heartlessness,* so constantly and dog- 
gedly urged against him by surface-readers of his marvellous 


278 


ruby’s husband. 


creations. “ Fairoaks to Let” stood at the head, and it opened 
with George Warrington’s confession of his early and irrep- 
arable misstep in life, and his plea to Pen in behalf of his 
mother and uncle, who had, by the interference the hot-headed 
youth resented as a dire atfront,' saved him from a like fate. 
Louis, engaged in the nice operation of manufacturing a fly 
supposed to be a particularly choice item upon troutiiie bills 
of fare, slouched his straw hat over his brows, and heard, \vith 
a heart thrilled into slow and labored beats, — each a sickening 
movement, like the pained roll of a bound and tortured thing, — 
the marvellous transcript of an experience so analogous to his 
own, that he felt everybody else must recognize the fidelity of 
the likeness. 

“ ‘ She was a yeoman’s daughter in the neighborhood,’ said 
Warrington, with rather a faltering voice; ‘and I fancied — 
what all young men fancy. Her parents knew who my father 
was, and encouraged me wdth all sorts of coarse artifices and 
scoundrel flatteries, which I see now, about their house. . . . 

“ ‘ Would to God I had not been so deceived ; but in these 
matters we are deceived when we wdsh to be so, and I thoimht 
I loved that poor woman. What could come of such a mar- 
riage? I found, before long, that I was married to a boor. 
She could not comprehend one subject that interested me. Her 
dulness palled upon me until I grew to loathe it. And after 
some time of a wretched furtive union — I must tell you alF — 
I found letters somewhere (and such letters they were !) whicli 
showed me that her heart, such as it was, had never been mine, 
but had always belonged to a person of her own degree. 

“ ‘ At my father’s death I paid wdiat debts I had contracted in 
college, and settled every shilling Mdiich remained to me in an 
annuity upon — upon those who bore my name, on condition 
that they should hide themselves away, and not assume it. 
They have kept that condition, as they would break it, for more 
money. If 1 had earned fame or reputation, that woman would 
have come to claim it. If I had made a name for myself, those 
who had no right to it would have borne it ; and I entered life 


ruby’s husband. 


279 


at twenty hopeless and ruined beyond remission. I was the 
boyish victim of' vulgar cheats ; and perhaps it is only of late I 
have found out how hard — all, how hard ! — it is to forgive them 
I told you the moral before, Pen, and now I have told you the 
fable. Beware how you marry out of your degree. I was 
made for a better lot than this, 1 think, but God has aAvarded 
me this one, and so, you see, it is for me to look on and see 
others successful and others happy "with a heart that shall be 
as little bitter as possible.’ ” 

“ Apro-pos de hottes ! ” shouted Paul, striking his hands to- 
gether with a concussion that caused his mother to — in technical 
phrase — “ ground her fan ” several feet distant from the knee 
where it should have fallen. “ 1 crave leave to press my nulli- 
fication act upon the attention of this honorable body. Here is 
the predestined husband of a good, pure woman, ruined before 
he ever saw her by the machinations of a trio of unprincipled, 
designing vulgarians. Make his case, in imagination, yours, 
Suydam, and join with me in urging improved legislation upon 
this nefarious abuse of confidence, this sharp practice upon these 
gelatinous innocents — the hearts of minors.” 

“ I move the adoption of the resolution brought forward hy 
the honorable brother,” said Louis, in a thick voice, caused 
possibly by his stooping postui’e, his silk having become entan- 
gled upon a bearded head of grass. 

“ We will suspend deliberation upon it until the reading is 
over, if you please,” suggested Mr. Suydam, somewhat impa- 
tiently. 

Louis listened no longer. 

“ I entered life hopeless and ruined beyond remission.” 
This was his sentence as surely as if he had borne it branded 
in scarlet shame upon his forehead. 

“ I was the boyish victim of vulgar cheats, and perhaps it is 
only of late I have found out how hard it is to forgive them.” 

Not “ perhaps,” but certainly and terribly ! From the shadow 
of the slant hat-brim, and by stealth, he scanned her who sat 
opposite him. The mellow, perfectly modulated inflections 


280 


ruby’s husband. ■ 


of her voice were sweeter than the song of thrush or robin 
in the greenwood near by. The clusters of dark hair were 
brushed away from her thoughtful brow, and among these, 
and over her white garments, fell' drops of filtered sunshine, 
making of her a lovely Danae, but a Danae without the lust for 
gold, or other unworthy longing. From the serene light of her 
eyes all thoughts unholy and unclean fled abashed at their own 
vileness. His whole being bowed before her as manhood only 
bows in the recognition of pure and lofty womanliness. She 
had elevated, not alone his conception of what constitutes that 
womanhood, but his views and aims respecting his kind, his 
duty, his life itself. 

“ She would have made a good if not a great man of me. 
As it is — hopeless and ruined beyond remission.” 

And then recurred to him poor George’s plaint, at which he 
had smiled just now. 

“ What can she be to me but the dearest, and the fairest, and 
the best of women ? ” 

Nothing else — but that always ! 

If he had met her three years ago ! The hard, slow oscilla- 
tion of the heart was quickened and softened until it kept time 
to the fast flash of delirious fancies, startled into being and 
motion by that “ If.” If his were the right to take in his her 
unresisting hand, to draw her closely and proudly to his side, 
there, in the sight of those who best loved them both, to lead 
her forward in her snowy robes, the drops of sunlight for her 
bridal gems, and say to his father, “ This is my wife and your 
daughter ! ” If his, his only, were the precious privilege of 
kissing into smoothness the plait between the brows that, more 
truly than tears or wailings, told when the brave soul was per- 
plexed to dismay ; of coaxing into full disclosure the doubts, 
anxieties, and alarms she now endured in silence ! 

If to him were granted the comfort of pouring into her ear 
the story of his life, — his aspirations, failures, achievements, — 
and of receiving in return the stimulus of her loving sympathy, 
her wise counsel, her prayerful and hopeful “ God speed ! ” 


ruby’s husband. 


281 


If _ still If ! 

The monosyllable yet bound his imaginings with weird, 
maybe wicked, assuredly worse than futile, fascination when 
the reading was over, and the hour for their afternoon drive 
arrived. 

“ May I be your charioteer?” he asked abruptly of Frank, 
as she brushed by him on her way to her chamber to get her 
hat and shawl. 

“ If you wish it — certainly ! ” surprise that was not displeas- 
ure dilating her dark gray irids at his blunt address. 

She smiled and colored, moreover, in replying — symptoms of 
agreeable emotion that did not escape the notice of her mother 
and Mrs. Suydam. Too much engrossed in his own reflections 
to observe the congratulatory nod exchanged by the mammas, 
Louis took his position beside the phaeton and awaited the ap- 
pearance of its mistress. He said something between his teeth 
and under his breath, as he did this. He was not addicted to 
quotations, poetical or prosaic, but this half-whisper had a 
rhythmic measure : — 

“E’en in a dream to be blest 

Is so sweet that I ask for no more.” 




2S2 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

“ You may hold the reins, but I will show you the way to 
go,” said Frank, leaving the right hand seat vacant for her 
companion. “ You remember the old song which tells how 

‘ Adam, the very first man, 

Did the very first woman obey,’ 

and proposes the plan I have mentioned as a sort of amicable 
compromise ? ” 

“I do not recollect it. I never heard it, I think,” answered 
Louis, dreamily. 

The words and music of another old ballad were ringing 
incessantly in his brain : — 

‘ Though ’tis all but a dream at the best, 

And still, when sweetest, soonest o’er, 

Yet e’en in a dream to be blest 

Is so sweet that 1 ask for no more.” 

“ I will sing it for you, some day. Just now, take for granted 
the wisdom of the advice it conveys, and turn pony’s head to 
the left. I have explored the route before.” 

Leaving the large carriage to bowl comfortably along the 
wdde highway, they entered a lane, bordered for a • hundred 
rods by farm fences ; then, plunging crookedly into the recesses 
of a wood where the trees fastened hardy roots into amazingly 
narrow fissures in the naked gray rocks, and held on for their 
lives to the brink of crags and pebbly banks, their trunks in- 
clining at an angle that joined their^branches in Gothic and 


ruby’s husband. 


283 


Norman arches across the road, Avhere pony picked his way up 
and down stony staircases from which the rushing spring tor- 
rents had washed the earth, and bathed his hoofs, every quarter 
of a mile, in a crystal rivulet, pursuing its busy way from the 
beetling highlands to the river, plashing and foaming in the 
wildwood far down to the right, where the sweet fern and blue- 
berries bruised by the carriage wheels, and the hickory boughs 
and wild grapes and hazel thickets above the heads of the ex- 
cursionists, loaded the air with spicy odors — warm breaths 
of fragrance meeting their senses when the August sun struck 
yellowly through the rifted foliage, swung from unseen censers 
towards the god of light and heat. Then bearing yet more 
sharply to the right, and winding steeply downward, jolting 
among granitic fragments, some of them vying in altitude with the 
sturdy little Shetland that stepped over and between them with 
the philosophical coolness of one born and bred in regions where 
these heights would pass for hillocks, across a rude and not too 
secure bridge over a yeasty creek, — and they emerged from 
the forest into an amphitheatre of hills, a temple of solitude, 
having for a flooring a sea of glass mingled with fire, a lake, 
w'aveless as the sea of Death in the hush of evening ; glorious 
as with the reflection from the gates of the New Jerusalem, in 
the burning mountain sunset. No boat Avas moored upon the 
banks, not a bird dipped his wing in the crimson and blue and 
orange that seemed to line the silent depths of a concave 
vast as that which overarched them. Far as the eye could 
reach there was not a trace of human habitation in cottage roof 
or curling smoke. The scene and the hour were theirs — theirs 
only. 

Louis dropped the reins, folded his arms, and dreamed, 
unchecked by motion or word from his companion. If her 
thoughts wore full . to speechless ecstasy of^the beauty and 
magnificence of that upon which ' she gazed, other and more 
intoxicating elements contributed to his reverie. 

Xf* — still if! Amid the grandeur and loneliness of Nature, 
he asked for no companionship beyond hers. The great mother 


284 


ruby’s husband. 


had other storehouses of loveliness where the foot of man sel- 
dom trod, where, hidden from the ken and censure of the world 
he hated, and to which she was indifferent, they might dwell 
together, forgetful of past errors, loathsome bondage — all claims 
save those of love. 

“ As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord 
is round about his people from henceforth — even forever ! ” 

The words w'^ere softly breathed, but he started as at the fall 
of an aerolite. The baleful power of the sorcery that had held 
captive heart and imagination was dissipated as the hosts of the 
Evil One are fabled to flee at the sign of the cross or the name 
of the Most High. He might risk all for love, — honor, prin- 
ciple, his very soul, — and count it great gain if he grasped the 
coveted prize, but the frenzied pleadings of passion, the starving 
cry of her owm heart, could never tempt her to sin. 

“ To sin and forget God ! ” The phrase had a meaning for 
her — one against wdiicli human eloquence would be as sand 
hurled against a rock. 

In the unreasonable smart of his disappointment, he spoke 
coldly, slightingly. 

“ How naturally the wmrds of Scripture rise to your lips wdieu 
others wmuld not think of using them ! ” 

“Is that so?” she asked, in unmoved sweetness. He could 
not determine whether or not she had detected his covert sneer. 
“ I suppose there is good reason for it. The Scriptures are 
adapted to all human need.” 

Human need ! Was not his sore enough to call dowm the pity 
of the dumb heavens? to move a compassionate Being, like 
him she worshipped, to relieve, if not to succor? 

“ To the wants of pious, trustful souls like yours, Frank,” 
he said, more gently. “ Benighted aliens, such as I, have no 
right and no inclination to handle the sacred treasures.” 

“ God despises no soul he has made. There is room in the 
heart of the All-Father for everyone of his children,” replied 
Frank, feelingly. “ If you would but believe this, Louis ! ” 

An obstinate something in Louis’s throat — he would have 


ruby’s husband. 


285 


set it down to hysteria, had he been a woman — kept his lips 
closed until they had skirted the upper edge of the lake- and 
fallen again into the main road. 

“ I have been a desperate reprobate in my day, Frank,” lie 
said then. “ You don’t begin to know how sad a sinner I am. 
If you did, you would cut my acquaintance forthwith — would 
show me no mercy.” 

“ I think you are mistaken. But if I were to prove so for- 
getful of the dictates of humanity and religion, you would have 
but the stronger claim upon One whose pity and charity are 
boundless.” 

“ Suppose” — pursued Louis, impelled by a perverse longing 
to tread the extremest verge of fate — “ suppose you should 
discover that I had, in days gone by — say, before you met me 
— been guilty of a great mistake — one that had tempted me to 
the commission of a great crime. Assume, for example, that 
1 turned forger to get money to meet my gambling debts ; that 
I got drunk, and killed a man while under the influence of 
liquor ; or that I plighted my troth to one woman and after- 
wards fell in love with another. I reveal the secret of one, or 
all of these iniquities to you in this confessional of Nature, won 
to the disclosure by your exceeding charity towards imaginary 
offenders of an aggravated type. Would not your righteous 
instincts instruct you to cast me into outer darkness? to taboo 
me socially, and, in the name of Heaven, to condemn me as a 
son of perdition, into whose secret your soul shuddered to have 
entered ? ” 

“ DonH ! you pain me ! ” begged Frank, distressfully. “ I 
cannot reply when you talk in that strain. It is unworthy of 
you. If you want to know whether sin — wilful and repeated 
transgressions of God’s law — can place a man beyond the reach 
of God’s forgiveness, I answer you in the words of Holy Writ — 
‘ The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.’ An old writer 
quaintly says, ‘ Be sure that we oftener tire of sinning than 
does God of forgiving.’ As for the approval or condemnation 
of our fellow-men, ‘It is a small thing that we should be 


286 


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judged of man’s judgment.’ One learns daily how prejudiced 
and fallible is that of the wisest mortals.” 

“ Yet men make the laws by which our actions are controlled, 
our characters and opinions moulded,” interrupted Louis. 

“ They do ; and in the main our consciences pronounce them 
to be just and wholesome restraints.” 

lie interposed again, bitterly and impetuously. 

“ And now and then — often — arbitrary, tyrannical, and mis- 
chievous dogmas ; making sin of that which is no sin ; forbid- 
ding a man to heed the whisper of the higher law within him, 
upon penalty of social crucifixion ! The wrongs done in the 
name of the law are irreparable, and the wronged one goes 
down to his grave the wreck of Avhat would have been a man, 
and might have been a hero, had not the beldame of human 
law clipped his wings before they were fairly grown.” 

“ You are enigmatical. You condemn me to deal in tame 
generalities, which fall, random shots. If you can trust me, 
and are willing to do so, tell me plainly what underlies this 
very unsatisfactory talk, and I shall know how to shape my 
answers.” 

“ You are prepared, then, to deal with crimes of enormous 
magnitude,” said Louis, with his short, harsh laugh. “ You 
have nerved yourself to a degree of moral courage that will 
hinder you from leaping out of the carriage, should you learn 
that you are sitting by a desperado, who combines, unsus- 
pected by omniscient Society, the characters of counterfeiter, 
forger, bigamist, and murderer ! ” 

“ Louis Suydam ! do you know that you are insulting me 
and vilifying yourself? ” 

He had neve^ seen her angry until the clearly enunciated 
query rang upon his ear. Her eyes were large and bright, 
her cheeks Avarmly flushed, her mouth compressed. 

“ However well it may please you to play the cynic to others, 
and in different circumstances,” she went on to say, “let me 
remind you that I have given you no provocation to use this 
tone and language to me.” ^ 


ruby’s husband. 


287 


“ You are right. We are unlike as are night and morning ; 
moving in diverse spheres, holding opposite opinions, actuated 
by different and irreconcilable principles,” rejoined Louis, meet- 
ing her penetrating look with one that was at once sardonic and 
despairing. “ Perhaps if you had crossed my path before my 
lot was cast for me — while I was impressible gelatine, flopping 
upon the beach of life’s ocean — you might have run me in a 
mould more to your liking. As it is, I am what I am. I can 
never be anything better or higher. If you knew all, you would 
subscribe to the truth of this. No!” — seeing her impulsive 
movement to interrupt him — “I am not talking for effect now. 
I am not the stultified Byronic disciple you believe me — neither 
a Manfred, nor a Cain. I do not prate that — 

‘ Untaught in youth my heart to tame, 

The springs of life were poisoned,’ 

or that — 

‘ The worm, the canker, and the grief. 

Are mine alone.’ 

Mine has been a hand-to-hand fight with Fate ever since I 
can remember, and she has been one too many for me, as might 
have been foreseen from the fact of her sex, if nothing more. 
Like other men — ^or boys — I had my dream, and it ruined me. 
I do not expect or desire pity. My load is mine, and I ask 
no man or woman to help me bear it. I say this not to excite 
your interest in my story, which has not one element of the 
heroic, or sensational, or romantic in it, but is commonplace 
and vulgar enough — Heaven knows ! Still less do I ask your 
toleration of my moods, as you have once, if not oftener, de- 
nominated the infrequent spasms of confidence that have over- 
taken me in your presence. My design is to exculpate myself 
from the charge of mannerism, of mawkish repinings, and a 
flaunt of cynicism which would be undignified in a dyspeptic 
sophomore. I may be a bear — I am not a puppy I ” 

And having talked himself into a towering passion, that 
menaced the preservation of his icy and doughty tone, he 
choked up and held his peace — or his wrath. Frank was 


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very white and still, except for an odd contraction and pulsation ' 
in her throat. She looked neither alarmed nor defiant — only 
sadly thoughtful. The brown Shetland jogged along, his head 
down, as unobservant of the dolphin dyes of the sky beyond ' 
the mountains as were the two behind him. 

“ You told me something on the second day of our acquaint- ■ 
anceship which it comforts me to remember now,” said Frank, 
presently. “ I had annoyed you by untimely entreaties that 
you should seek relief in rest and medicine for a headache 
which was troubling you. You silenced me finally, as you 
thought, hastily ; and coming to me, a minute later, assured me 
that you had not intended <10 wound me. I replied that I knew 
you had not meant to be rude or unkind. ‘ Why should you?’ 

I asked. You bade me, then, if I should ever have occasion in 
the future to repeat this query, always to answer it as I had 
done in this instance. I shall do it now. If I have occasion- 
ally seemed cold in my manner, ever less than kind, it was 
undesigned. I spoke quickly and Warmly a while ago — less, 

1 beg you to believe, because you offended my self-love than 
because you slandered yourself by linking with your name a 
list of heinous, and to you, impossible crimes. I ask your for- 
giveness for whatever was objectionable in my bearing or words. 
For the rest, you may deny me your friendship and confidence. 
You cannot refuse my esteem and sympathy. They are already 
yours — given freely and unasked. They are the due of my 
mother’s benefactor, and of him who was to me an able and 
gentle counsellor when I' most needed a friend. You must be 
very unhappy to have said what you did just now. I can only 
echo your words to me at a time when it seemed as if all hope 
on earth and help from Heaven had gone from me : ‘ I wish X 
could help you ’ ! ” 

“ Frank, darling, you are no woman, but an angel! ” cried 
Louis, agitated to the extremest limit of self-control. “ And I 
am a passionate, impatient, selfish wretch, who forgot he was 
a gentleman because you would have hindered him from being 
a villain ! ” 


ruby’s husband. 


289 


He caught her haud, and would have raised it to his lips, 
when he felt it start and stiffen in his, and a wild, blanched face 
stared away from him at some object in the road. It was on 
the side nearest her, and Louis had but one glimpse of a huge 
head, black and shaggy, red eyes dropping rheum, a double row 
of wolfish fangs, and a tongue flecked with blood and foam, 
when, with a smothered sound between a yell and a growl, the 
monster had leaped upon the side of the low phaeton, his chin 
on Frank’s knee. 

To dash his heel into the gaping jaws, and, as the shock 
bore the dog to the ground, to spring over Frank’s lap and the 
wheel, and, bestriding him, clutch his throat with both hands, 
were, with Louis, the work of seconds so brief and few, 
that Frank had scarcely caught a single terrified breath when 
she heard, above the loud pants of the combatants, tiie 
tramp of their struggling feet upon the rocky soil, and the 
growls of the rabid animal, the hoarse call — “Frank, drive 
on, for Heaven’s sake ! ” 

Instead of obeying, she alighted from the carriage. Her 
shawl was in her hand — a silken web, strong and elastic. In 
one corner she had tied a loop, and drawn through it a running 
noose. Holding this open widely, she watched her opportunity 
to throw it over the dog’s head, and, nothing intimidated by 
his blood}'- fangs and goggle eyes, drew it tight — tighter — the 
muscles of her wrist standing out tense and hard as steel, until, 
the strangled brute reeling to his death, Louis loosened his grip 
of the throat, seized the ligature, and put his foot upon the 
big head to finish the Avork. Then Frank went back to the 
phaeton, — the Shetland having stood aloof, a phlegmatic spec- 
tator of the scene, — sat down and closed her eyes in momentary 
unconsciousness of all about her. 

She was aroused by Louis’s voice, saying, in civil regret, 
“ I am afraid your shaAvl is spoiled. It is a pity. It was 
very pretty.” 

He was at the carriage door, displaying her injured property, 

19 


290 


ruby’s husband. 


muddy, creased, and stretched out of all shape. She put it 
aside with a gesture of aversion. 

“ Throw it away ! I can never bear to look at it again ! ” 

“ Then I shall keep it as a trophy of your prowess,” returned 
Louis, coolly, folding and tucking it under his cushion. But 
for you, our friend in the ditch over there,” nodding backward, 
“ would, I fear, have been, as I said of Fate a while ago, one 
too many for me.” 

He climbed into his place, picked up the reins, and spoke to 
the Shetland, who trotted off in the most unconcerned manner 
imaginable. 

Frank, resolutely fighting her way to apparent composure, 
through giddiness, nausea, and ague, found now more collected 
words. 

“ Are you quite safe? Did he not injure you at all?” 

“ My wrists and fingers ache, and my respiration is irregular 
as yet,” was the reply. “ Otherwise I am all right. You 
have sustained most damage. Look at your dress ! The 
brute’s paws must have done that when I kicked him over- 
board. There i^ a zigzag tear two feet long at least. Can it 
be mended? or am I to add that to my list ,of mementos, as 
they hang battered and shot-riddled banners in triumphal 
arches ? ” 

He laughed — covertly watching, meanwhile, for the first 
variation of her deadly pallor, his chained heart straiqing upon 
the fetters in the mad longing to take her in his arms ; to mur- 
mur thanks for her safety, and blessings upon the brave, true 
soul that had led_ her to tempt destruction for herself sooner 
than desert him in his peril ; to recall the truant blood by his 
kisses, and to claim her, for that one instant of their mutual 
deliverance from a horrible death, as his own, bought with 
a price the utmost mortal can offer, — the venture of his life for 
her, and hers for him. The chain held fast in all the groaning 
links — even when the dear eyes closed again, and, with the 
faintest flicker of color to the cheeks, the tears pressed from 
betwixt the lids. 


ruby’s- husband. 


291 


“ Thank God ! ” she said, fervently. 

Louis did n(?t say, “Amen.” He flicked pony’s side with 
the whip, inciting him to a smarter trot, and bringing a rush 
of brisker, cooler air into their faces. Better she should think 
him callous, ungrateful, unkind, than that he should prove him- 
self a scoundrel. If he spoke at all, he would say that which 
would, eventually, condemn him forever in her sight, and per- 
chance extort from her expressions of friendly regard — in his 
self-abasement, he durst go no farther — which she might, in 
calmer and wiser moments, wish to retract. 

The farm-house was in sight, when Frank asked, in a more 
natural tone, “Was he really mad, do you think?” 

“He looked like it. I thought so, at the time. However 
that may have been, his unceremonious attack upon peaceful 
travellers deserved condign punishment.” 

Pony trotted down into the valley, and Louis, who studiously 
avoided looking at his companion, felt her move forward as if 
she tried to catch his eye. 

“ Dr. Suydam I Will you not let me thank you for saving 
life?” 

O, the fettered heart ! O, the untold and never-to-be-for- 
gotten agony under the veil of the smiling visage turned to- 
wards her ! 

“ My dear Miss Barry ! if formal acknowledgments are the 
order of the hour, you must allow me to apprise you of a cir- 
cumstance so patent to me that I supposed you understood it 
as well. Yours was the greater danger and the more coura- 
geous action of the two. You are a heroine, for you could 
have escaped, if humanity had not moved you to help me. I 
am not a hero, for I acted upon a simple and unavoidable prin- 
ciple of self-preservation. If the dog had bitten you, he must 
have attacked me also. Having once grappled with him, I 
could not let go. You are under no obligation to me — not the 
slightest. It is not I who underrate what I have done, but you 
who exaggerate the extent of the risk I ran, and my bravery in 
the afli-ay which was forced upon me. AYe will cry ‘ quits,’ if 


292 


ruby’s husband. 


you loill accord me what I yet insist is unmerited honor. The 
most valorous combatant of all was worsted, to wit, our four- 
footed antagonist, who met the consequences of his temerity in 
having scaled, single-mouthed, a garrison manned by such wise 
and Avary warriors. I hope you observe my alliteration, and 
commend it.” 

Frank did not smile at this nonsense. She looked the disap- 
pointment she did not utter, at the turn he was resolved to give 
the affair. 

At the farm-house gate she remarked, quietly, “TVe Avill 
say nothing of this in-doors. Mother Avould be sadly excited.” 

“You are right.” 

He forbore to press her hand in helping her to alight. Nor 
did he send a single look after her as she entered the house. 
He drove the Shetland around to the carriage-house, took the 
light shawl from beneath the cushion, folded it into a small 
parcel, and buttoned it in the breast of his coat. Then, whis- 
tling to his dog to follow, he disappeared among the willows 
and birches shading the stream at the foot of .the hill on Avhich 
stood the house. 

When tlie party assembled for supper, he had not returned ; 
and the farmer “ guessed he had gone a night-fishing.” 

“ There^s a power of eels and cat-fish to be yanked out o’ 
that ’ere river, after dark, if anybody tried for them what knows 
how. And Dr^ Suydam knows how to do most things, it ap- 
pears.” 

Paul went up the stream a dozen rods or so, and shouted for 
his comrade until the farther mountains returned the echo. 
Louis did not hear him. Half a mile away, the whip-poor- 
wills wailing fitfully in the surrounding forest, and his dog 
watching beside, him, he lay on the mossy ground, face down- 
ward, cursing the day in which he was born. 


ruby’s husband. 


293 


CHAPTER XXII. 

One snowy December afternoon Dr. Suydam stood in Mrs. 
Barry’s parlor, attending a summons to her sick chamber. She 
was a confessed invalid now. The world at large was given 
to understand that she had a severe cold, and some, recollect- 
ing her hectic bloom and asthmatic tendencies, dared, outside 
her house, to whisper the dread word. Consumption. Only the 
Suydams and Dr, Milnor knew that a more terrible destroyer 
was eating out her life — no longer insidiously, but with rapid 
advances, appalling to those familiar with sickness and death ; 
dreadful beyond compare to one taking her first lessons in nurs- 
ing a patient hopelessly diseased with a malady which was 
nothing less than visible corruption. 

Twice the doctor had pulled out his watch, with an impatient 
look at the entrance. The second time he murmured, “ The 
ruling passion strong in death ! She will play out the farce of 
appearances to the end ! ” 

The handsome parlors were in perfect order — the order of 
disuse ; and although warm as summer, were strangely desolate 
on this stormy day. The piano M^as closed, the harp muffled in 
green baize, never to be swept again by the mistress’s hand, and 
the china and Bohemian glass vases upon mantles and tables 
w’ere empty. Looking around upon the dreariness of luxury, 
the physician sighed audibly, “ Poor, homeless bird ! ” 

A light step upon the stairs and in the hall, and Frank en- 
tered. Louis had not met her in a week or more, and her altered 
appearance impressed him instantly and painfully. She was 
thinner and paler than formerly, her eyes larger, darker, and 


294 


ruby’s husband. 


clearer, and the habitual contraction of the eyebrows had 
ploughed a slight furrow in her forehead. She wore a gray 
wrapper without ornament, her hair put back from her face, 
and bound with a narrow blue ribbon. But her smile and 
voice were unchanged, and she received him with « unembar- 
rassed cordiality. 

“ Mother will be delighted to see you. Dr. Milnor is very 
attentive, but she likes you better than she does him. That 
was the reason I told your mother to ask you to call now 
and then. I am sorry we have kept you waiting ; but we 
were very busy when you came.” 

He knew what was the nature of her recent occupation ; 
— that this young, tenderly-nurtured girl hourly performed 
duties at which trained hospital nurses would have revolted. 
If Mrs. Barry had sacrificed everything — truth, nature, and 
existence — upon the altar of vanity, her retribution was in 
kind, and fearfully significant. Not that she recognized it. 
She held high state in her boudoir, where pungent pastiles 
burned continually, and windows were lowered from the top 
every half hour to expel the sickly, feverish odor, that struck, 
like the breath of the charnel-house, upon the olfactories of 
every one that entered. 

Wrapped in a gorgeous 'peignoir of crimson brocade, an 
affghan, in which mimic roses, pansies, and lilies blossomed 
into mammoth proportions upon a white ground, drawn over 
her lower limbs, a crimson silk, fan, trimmed with swan’s 
down, in her attenuated right hand, the left being already 
powerless from sympathy with the afiected side, she greeted 
her young physician by flinging him a coquettish kiss from 
the tip of her sceptre, and smiled gayly at his nearer ap- 
proach. 

“ Ah, truant ! What forfeit shall I exact for your delin- 
quency? What have you to plead in miserable excuse for 
your cruelty, in that you have inflicted upon me the doctor, 
venerable, and sage, and precise ” (with mock primness) ; 
“ who feels the pulse with the eyes upturned, and sighs dolo- 


ruby’s husband. 


295 


rously when he inquires for my health? who bids me protrude 
the tongue, and asks the questions — O, the most tiresome I ’’ 

“ I wished you to have the benefit of a skilful physician, 
madam ; and there is no comparison between Dr. Milnor’s ability 
and experience and mine,’’ rejoined Louis, sitting down by 
her. “ What a number of beautiful bouquets ! ” 

The stand near her lounge was loaded with flowers and lit- 
tered with cards. 

Tickled as a child by praise of his. new rattle, Mrs. Barry 
launched into encomiums upon the donors, and expatiated upon 
the delight she derived from “ communion with the beloved 
Nature,” as typified by the cut darlings of the greenhouse. 

“ This,” Frank said, singling out a small but choice group 
of flowers, “ is from our friend Katrine. She leaves one at 
■ the door every day. Mother sometimes sends for her to come 
up. She amuses us by her quaint humor ; interests us by her 
genuine goodness of heart.” 

“ She is a character the most charming ! ” cried Mrs. Barry. 
“ The poor creature ! but she is honest, sensible, and grateful ! ” 

“ I know she is in high favor here,” answered Louis. “ Aud 
this has instigated an idea I have come prepared to broach this 
morning, Mrs. Barry. She is an excellent nurse — tender, 
strong, and discreet. Her attachment to your family and to 
mine leads me to believe that I can secure her as aid to Miss 
Frank here, who shows the effect of confinement more plainly 
than so youthful a nurse should be allowed to do. What do 
you say to installing our excellent Hollandaise as assistant 
nurse ? ” 

He had expected a battle, and he had it. He had prepared 
himself for an extraordinary trial of temper and patience, aud 
nothing could have met these anticipations more fully than the 
levity with which his proposal was at first received, and the 
selfish melancholy into which his opponent subsided, when he 
made her understand that he was serious and determined. She 
paraded, ad nauseam^ her excessive refinement, her ineffable 
and supersensitive delicacy, that shuddered at the thought of 


296 


ruby’s husband. 


the approach of an uncultivated stranger to a bedside which 
should be sacred as a temple to a heart truly interfused with 
filial piety — a reproachful look at Frank, who had hitherto 
taken no share in the conversation. 

She interfered now. 

“ Dr. Suydam,” she said, hurriedly, and with rising color, 
“ I am grateful for your consideration for my health, but I am 
quite adequate to ray work. I am well and strong.” 

“ You are neither,” returned Louis, bluntly. “ I am acting 
now less as your friend than your family physician. You have 
lost flesh and color lately. A month more of this life will ex- 
haust your strength, so deplete the vital forces that utter pros- 
tration or low fever will ensue.” 

“ A month ! Of what does he speak? ” giggled Mrs. Barry, 
hysterically. “In a month I shall be quite restored. The 
social assembly, the ride, the concert, the opera — they will 
know me again as of old. If you will have it that this weak 
child loses strength daily, it is I who gain it continually. It is 
I who will nurse her, should she sustain injury in supplying 
my few wants. Mafoi! what is it that these are? A glass 
of eau sucre from time to time ; a touch to my draperies and 
pillows ; a few pages of a charming novel read aloud, when she 
is in the mood to oblige me — this is absolutely all.” 

“ You forget, madam,” replied Louis, boldly, “ that you can- 
not turn yourself upon your lounge without assistance ; that 
oftentimes your bandages must be adjusted several times each 
day ; that your food must ^be brought to your bedside and cut 
up for you ; the very cup held to your lips when you would 
drink, or take your medicine. I would not be needlessly harsh, 
but this is a serious question. Dr. Milnor and myself are one 
in the opinion that you should have another nurse. Katrine is 
kindly of temper, patient, cheerful, and obliging, and I will be 
security for her discretion. Should you, in a month’s time, 
recover sufficiently to warrant your dismissal of her, you will 
have given employment to a worthy woman, and, while helping 
her to maintain her family at this, the dull season of the year 


euby’s husband. 


297 


Avith lier, have assisted in the preservation of your daughter’s 
health and bloom.” 0 

Mrs. Barry covered her face with her fan, and affected a 
shivering sob. Dramatically viewed, she was dissolved in 
tears, w'hich must, however, have rolled over her powdered 
cheeks as dew-drops from a dock leaf, since no trace of them 
was perceptible when she lowered her fan, literally and fig- 
uratively. 

“ Have your own way ! ” she said, with an asthmatic quaver, 
and an expression of general broken-heartedness. “ I am but 
a faded flower, tossed from wave to wave, at the will of every 
current and breeze.” 

Louis maintained his gravity by a tremendous effort. Her 
w^eazen, whitened face, lying amid her crimson wrappings, was, 
taken in connection with her plaint, ludicrously like the pollen- 
dusted pistil of a hollyhock. 

“ You will not regret this sacrifice,” he returned, cheerfully. 
“ You will soon perceive the value of the treasure you have 
gained in la honne Katrine, I commend to your interest her 
stories of peasant life in her native land, and reminiscences of 
her girlhood. They have a flavor about them like that of 
Rhenish wine. Your artistic taste cannot but be gratified by 
her simple yet graphic tales. You will thank me, shortly, for 
the delightful variety I have introduced into your day’s pro- 
gramme.” 

He had not known li^s interesting patient more than a year, 
and failed to learn that the surest way to her heart was by the 
exercise of well-timed flattery. Her appetite in this respect 
was insatiable as a boa-constrictor’s. She brightened up per- 
ceptibly at this titbit ; but liveliness was out of the question as 
yet. Meek resignation was her role, and her endeavors to ac- 
complish a becoming show of this were to her medical adviser 
and reputed despot but a shade less tolerable than her fantastic 
gayety. 

“ You will send the” (gulp) ; — “your nurse, immediately — 
is it not so?” slie murmured, looking up into his eyes with 
excruciating patience when he rose to go. 


298 


ruby’s husband. 


“Not before to-morrow — or the next day.” 

“ Thanks ! you are kind ! ” as one respited from the scaffold 
for a night and day more. 

“ She shall not come at all, if you do not wish it, mother,” 
Frank, said, decidedly. 

“ My child, have I not given my word that she shall be my 
custodian? Is not that enough? Or do you will that I shall' 
make the greater sacrifice of my unconsidered feelings, and 
declare that it is my earnest desire she should supplant my 
daughter at my bedside ? ” 

Frank remonstrated further, but not until she had attended 
Dr. Suydam to the parlor. There her protest was energetic, 
and his vantage-ground was as energetically maintained. 

“ Do not drive me to say that if I am not obeyed in this par- 
ticular, I shall renounce the management of the case,” he said, 
at length. “ The good of the patient demands the arrange- 
ment I have proposed. Mere justice to you requires it as per- 
emptorily. You are not one to be swayed by quixotic ambition 
to immolate yourself at the shrine of another’s caprice, let that 
other be who she may. And,” after a pause, “ you must re- 
member that your work of nursing may have just begun.” 

They were standing by a window, the panes of which were 
blurred and misty with the driving snow. The elm branches 
bowed low under their ermine robes ; the area enclosed by the 
park railing was a smooth, untrampled sheet. The streets were 
nearly deserted, and the roll of wheels and fall of feet upon 
the cushioned earth were soundless. The stillness without and 
within was alike profound. 

“ I only wish to know my duty, and to do it,” said Frank, 
in a weary tone, resting her brow against the glass. 

“No one who knows you can doubt that,” replied Louis, in 
grave sincerity. Then he changed the topic. “ You have 
written of your mother’s condition to your sister, Mrs. Lang- 
ley?” 

“ Yes — that is, I wu'ote to Mr. Langley, asking him to break 
the intelligence to Sue. We had letters from them yesterday. 


ruby’s husband. 


299 


They are at Nice. Sue is not well this winter. The doctors 
fear that her lungs are weak. Sorrows seldom come alone.” 

“ And Paul?” 

“ Is cruising in the Mediterranean. He knows nothing. I 
thought it best that he should not — poor boy! He cannot 
come home, and he would but suffer the needless pains of 
suspense.” 

“ You have another brother?” 

“Yes — in New Orleans, and a sister in San Francisco. 
We are a widely-scattered household. My brother cannot leave 
his business for a week, but I keep him advised regularly of 
my mother’s condition. The distance, and my sister’s large 
family, put her coming out of the question. No ; I must meet: 
whatever is to befall me alone, and patiently. It is best so.^' 
The rest will be spared much sorrow. They could do nothing 
for her if they were here.” 

“You staid an eternity down stairs ! ” fretted Mrs. Barry, 
when her daughter returned to her chamber. “ I am perishing 
with thirst, and my pillows are uncomfortable.” 

Frank held the glass to her lips, and arranged the cushions 
under her shoulders and head. 

“ You are growing careless,” her mother resumed, fanning 
herself with peevish rapidity. “ You tire of me — of the mother 
who watched over your childish ailments, and nurtured you into 
mature girlhood. While the acquaintances of a day vie with 
one another to show me attention, my own daughter wearies of 
my society, finds the light duties of attendance in my sick-room 
burdensome.” 

“ I have never wearied of these for an instant, mother. I 
prefer to be here, and to wait upon you, any other compan- 
ionship and occupation.” 

Mrs. Barry fidgeted in pain or restlessness. 

“ The glare from the snow hurts my eyes. Drop that cur- 
tain.” 

“ This storm will make fine sleighing,” observed Frank, 
pleasantly, as she obeyed. 


300 


ruby’s husband. 


4 

“ A very mal-aprojjos speech to make to one who cannot par- 
ticipate in the amusement,’* retorted her mother. “ You seem 
to take a malicious delight in reminding me of my misfortune. 
But for your officious tattling, no one besides ourselves need 
ever have known of it. What benefit have I derived from your 
confidants? Absolutely none. I am in their power, and they 
cannot relieve one pang. But for the knowledge that I’ was at 
his mercy, that he would revenge himself by trumpeting the 
story of my affliction everyAvhere, I would have dismissed Dr. 
Suydam to-day for his insulting recapitulation of my trifling 
needs. His language was coarse in the extreme, his smile and 
bearing insolent. And you offered no defence for me, who am 
unable to protect myself. You plotted slyly and effectually — 
you two — to bring that low Dutch woman into my house and 
chamber ! ” 

“ Mother,” burst from the much-enduring daughter, “ I had 
no suspicion that Dr. Suydam meant to provide a nurse for 
you until he spoke of it to you this afternoon.” 

“ Bah ! Am I a silly child, that I should credit that? How 
cunningly you introduced the name of ‘our friend Katrine,’ 
whose bouquets, I'now see, were so many bribes for my favor ! 
And how quickly he took up the thread and helped you weave 
the web about me — me — unsuspecting, trustful, suffering ! ” 

Real tears ran from the angry eyes, clearing sallow little 
channels through the bismuthed surface. 

“ Dear mother ! poor little mother ! ” soothed Frank, bring- 
ing her a bottle of cologne, and gently fanning the fevered face. 
“ You will judge me more truly wdien you are yourself again. 
You are tired now, dear, and excited. Let me charm you to 
sleep.” 

A cabinet piano had been brought up stairs since the begin- 
ning of Mrs. Barry’s confinement to her boudoir and chamber, 
and one of Frank’s duties was to play whenever and whatever 
the whimsical invalid ordered. She touched the keys softly 
now, in the inspired strains of Beethoven and Von Weber, pass- 
ing into dreamy improvisations, when a glance over her shoulder 


• ruby’s husband. 


801 


told that her mother slept. If the plaintive minor chords, 
linked by ever so slender a chain of melody, were cries of the 
heart, the musician carried one in her bosom overtasked and 
aching beyond what falls to the common lot of those of her sex 
and age. Slowly and more faintly moaned chords and melody, 
until they died into the stillness of the snowy winter afternoon. 
Then the watcher, without noise, rolled a folding screen be- 
tween the sleeper and the windows, and lowered them, cau- 
tiously, one after another, herself pacing the room to keep her 
blood in motion, while the freezing air did the work of purifi- 
cation. 

She looked like one in prison bounds, and she was. The gay 
good humor which had been Mrs. Barry’s chief recommenda- 
tion to the affection of her family, and the respect of those 
whose good opinion was worth having, had not been proof 
against the irritating influences of her disease. All her pow- 
ers of dissimulation — and they were neither few nor contemp- 
tible — were now addressed to the task of keeping up appear- 
ances in the eyes of visitors. The servants privately denounced 
her as “ a cross old cat,” and Frank said nothing at home or 
abroad to intimate that her mother’s temper was anything but 
perfect in grain and in wear. She was not thinking, in her 
solitary promenade, of the taunts hurled at herself ; of the un- 
generous depreciation of her tireless services ; of the selfish 
disregard of her comfort and health, manifested by one who 
should have been earliest to fear that her child’s life was endan- 
gered by her self-devotion. She was picturing to herself, in- 
stead, the changes that 'would be brought to her by the coming 
months — the ravages of the ineradicable evil, which through her 
much pondering upon it had assumed for her a character, a 
motive, and a purpose. 

Mrs. Barry’s disbelief in the fatal nature of her disorder was 
obstinate. In vain the doctors, urged by Frank, spoke out 
candidly and plainly their conviction that nothing short of a 
miracle could arrest the march of decay. In vain Frank strove 
to divert her thoughts from the hollow baubles of vanity and 


802 


ruby’s husband. 


time to the momentous considerations that challenged the 
interest of one who might be, even now, standing upon the 
verge of another world. In vain pain, pitiless and greedy, 
reminded her, in throb, and dart, and burning ache, that 
Nature could not long make good lier own against such odds. 
Child of earth and folly she had lived, and in death she would 
not renounce her allegiance.^ The puppet of fashion, she had 
danced her hour upon the stage of life, and she would not, or 
could not, cast aside the tawdry masquerade dress. Oblivion 
of physical pain, and diversion of her reflections from wdiat 
slie termed the “ disagreeables ” of her case, — meaning not only 
the physical features, upon which no one cared to dwell, but the 
awful reality of her danger, — were her ruling desires. Grant 
her these, and she was a sickly shadow of her former self. 

“ This life is making me old ! ” Frank had said, eight months 
ago. She looked back to that time now as does the mariner 
upon the stormy high seas to the gently heaving waves of the 
harbor wherein he rode at safety. She united to a strong will 
and even temper a trust in the mercy and wisdom of her heav- 
enly Father, which was singularly child-like and steady in a world 
where faith is apt to faint and fall for the w^ant of sight in those 
who grope amid the lower and thicker fogs. But she was a 
woman, and human sympathy was a need of her nature. With 
Paul’s arm ready to uphold her weary form, and Sue’s breast 
on which to shed the tears that moistened her pillow when 
others slept, she could have borne whatever rested upon* and 
overhung her. The Suydams were exceedingly kind. Espe- 
cially she valued the affectionate respect accorded her by Mr. 
Suydam. His advice was sound and readily given whenever 
she asked for it, and his manner to her was even fatherly. 
But the disparity in their ages, characters, and positions pre- 
cluded intimacy. Louis was watchful of her comfort, guarding 
her from pain and annoyance in many ways. He liked her, 
she knew ; but since the memorable day of their forest drive, 
he had never overstepped the barrier of reserve he had then 
built. Circumspect in his deportment when with her, as in 


ruby’s husband. 


803 


the audience-room of a queen, serious, gentlemanly, and pro- 
fessional, he seemed to recede farther and farther from the 
terras of brotherly and sisterly intercourse she had once hoped 
would be established as their natural meeting-ground. She 
accepted the place allotted her, and showed him that she ac- 
quiesced in his wishes in this regard. Perhaps under the 
more active elements of sorrow and forebodings in her moth- 
er’s behalf, there was the weary pain of disappointment that 
she was no more to him than the dozens of other women who 
passed daily under the review of his grave, penetrating eyes. 

This she did not show. 


804 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

New Year’s Day — the social jubilee of Knickerbocker 
belles and beaux — was but a week off, and Mrs. Barry 
resolved, in the recesses of her crotchety brain, to make a 
demonstration. She was pining, she announced, less from 
the wasting effect of disease than for the want of a sensa- 
tion. Despite fever, pain, and the gnawing horror above her 
heart, she would “receive” on the first of the year. 

“ You need not look horrified,” she said sharply to Frank, 
whose expression, on learning what was her intention, did, it 
must be owned, warrant the use of the word. “ I compre- 
hend, as well as your decorous self, that it is impracticable to 
admit to this small room the host who will besiege my doors 
upon that day. But when Recamier, and Pompadour, and 
Ninon de I’Enclos received morning calls from their chosen 
friends of the other sex in their dressing-rooms and bed-cham- 
bers, as does many a French lady of rank at the present daj’-, 
there can be no impropriety in my seeing half a dozen elderly 
gentlemen in this my boudoir. I shall give orders, — if I am 
still so far the mistress of my own house as to issue an order, — 
I shall direct, I say, that Messrs. Guysbert, Suydam, Brevoort, 
Gause, Vanderpool, and one or two more whom I shall se- 
lect, be admitted to my presence for a few moments. I shall, 
with them, taste a macaroon," and touch my lips to my glass 
when they drink to our early reunion under more favorable 
auspices. I will, moreover. Petite, that you purchase a new 
dress for me. I can achieve nothing beyond a demi-toilet, of 
course, but I would have that recherche and becoming. I slept 


ruby’s husband. 


805 


none last night, in the dread lest, in the half-furnished shops 
of Kroywen, you should not be able to find what I want — a 
purely white cashmere robe with an Indian border, in bright, 
yet delicate colors ; to match, in effect, my camel’s-hair shawl, 
which, gracefully disposed about my shoulders, shall hide this 
disabled member,” touching disdainfully the useless left arm. 
“ I desire you, also, to see that the pillows trimmed with Chan- 
tilly, are in order, and to you, my good Katrine, I leave the 
flowers. I wish there were time to get up new curtains and 
to retint the walls.” 

Katrine’s countenance as this preposterous jargon was poured 
forth was a comical study. Lest she should betray the excess 
of her amazement and contemptuous pity, she withdrew to the 
rear of the sofa, and stooped to pick up bits of lin^ from the 
carpet, the bandages having been prepared there five minutes 
previously. 

Mrs. Barry had talked herself into a fine humor, and the 
glitter of her eyes, the rapidity- of her articulation, and the 
quick oscillations of her fan, evinced her excited enjoyment in 
her novel project. * 

Controlling her tongue to parley discreetly and subtly, and 
letting her features relax from their obnoxious “ horrified ” 
cast, Frank essayed to overcome her mother’s resolution. She 
might as well have wooed Wolf Hill to abandon his lonely 
sovereignty of the marshes for a seat among the gregarious 
hills flanking the western horizon. Dr. Milnor, arriving in 
the midst of the discussion, heard both sides, and advised 
Frank to surrender. 

Privately he explained to her that her mother must be hu- 
mored whenever it was safe or possible to do so. 

“ Get the dress and appurtenances,” he said. “ The pro- 
cesses of making and fitting will provide her with amusement 
for a week to come. Should she not change her mind by 
New Year’s day, we must devise some other means of cir- 
cumventing her than by direct opposition. It is necessary — 
imperatively needful — at this juncture to exercise the utmost 
20 


30G 


kuby’s husband. 


tact and ingenuity to avoid excitement or irritation. Soothe 
and flatter her into a pleasant calm whenever you can.” 

In pursuance of this counsel, Frank set out, next morning, 
for the metropolis, with a heart as full as her pocket-book, 
and far heavier. By some inexplicable accident, she found, in 
the first store she visited, a morning robe of French cashmere, 
answering to Mrs. Barry’s description of that in her mind’s 
eye, as if it had been manufactured to order. The quiet little 
lady, in whose sight the civilly patronizing shopman displayed 
its glories, was not moved to enthusiasm by “ the most superb 
article of the kind ever imported, madam.” She examined 
texture and pattern with unpromising gravity ; ordered it to 
be put up, and paid the exorbitant price befitting the beauty 
and rarity of the prize, as she might have purchased a burial 
garment. 

Her shopping expedition having consumed less time than she 
had anticipated, Frank bethought herself of another errand her 
mother had instructed her to perform. This was to pay a visit 
to an old friend of Mrs. Barry, who had sent her card out to 
Krilwen two days befoye, inscribed with the address, “ Santa 
Claus Hotel.” To the hotel Frank repaired, and sending up 
her name to the lady in question, sat down in one of the 
drawing-rooms to await her appearance. 

The adjoining apartment on her right hand was the last 
of the long suite — a snug little parlor with a bright fire in 
the chimney. The sparkle of this — the outer day being sun- 
less and bleak — drew Frank’s notice to the hearth as seen 
through the arched doorway. Then, wandering idly over the 
bronze ornament^ of the grate, and the elaborate workmanship 
of the white marble mantel, her eye lighted upon a tableau 
painted within the frame of the mirror reaching from 
mantel to ceiling. A beautiful woman, richly habited in a 
morning costume not dissimilar to that the daughter had just 
selected for her mother, the shine of the fire bringing out 
dusky-red reflections in her wealth of brown hair, her long 
lashes sweeping a cheek where rose-pink struggled for suprem- 


ruby’s husband. 


80T 


acy with creamy white ; a smile, coquettish, shy, seductive, 
disturbing the curves of the scarlet lips — leaned back in a 
deep chair, and listened to. the low tones of her companion, 
a man fashionably attired and well made, whose back was to 
the glass. His words were subdued below Frank’s hearing, 
but the earnest inflections were those of passionate pleading. 
If other proof that he was reciting a tale of love were needed, 
it was supplied when he took in his the unresisting fingers, 
loaded with gems, and kissed them once and yet again. In 
the listener Frank had immediately recognized the fair incog- 
nita she had seen upon the ferry-boat in June, to whom Veddar 
had that day paid assiduous court, and at whom Dr. Suydam 
had sneered. 

With an uncomfortable sense of having played the spy to a 
tender scene, Frank got up to retire to another room, when the 
cavalier changed his attitude so as to project his profile upon 
the telltale mirror. It was Veddar himself who personated 
the worshipper of the warm-tressed goddess. 

“ And why should he not?” queried Frank, effecting her re- 
treat unseen by the enamoured pair. “He has the right to woo 
whomsoever and wheresoever he chooses.” 

Yet she felt that all was not right. The laxity of his habits 
and principles was no secret in Krawen. Into Frank’s com- 
paratively secluded life had stolen tales of his vagaries and 
intrigues, which had caused her to decline any overture of 
gallantry from him tending towards familiar acquaintanceship. 
Mr. Suydam, she knew, discouraged his visits at* his house, 
and Louis’s significant silence, whenever his name was intro- 
duced, warned her that he could say much detrimental to his 
character, if policy or honor had not sealed his mouth. There 
was, moreover, a nameless air about the woman who permitted, 
nay, invited, his show of homage and received his caresses, that 
jarred upon Frank’s instincts. Her florid beauty, the redun- 
dance of jewelry that bestudded her dress to disfigurement, 
bespoke her something less than the true lady, and her smile 
was the blandishment of a courtesan. Still, Dr. Suydam 


308 


ruby’s husband. 


knew her, accosted her as one old acquaintance might an- 
other — not as a physician would speak to a whilom patient. 

Thoroughly vexed at the spectacle she had witnessed, and 
with herself for having in the first place contemplated it, and, 
secondly, meditated and conjectured about it, she gladly hailed 
the entrance of the lady she had called to see, and tried to ban- 
ish recollections and speculations together. She had partially 
succeeded in the revival of ancient memories and talk of family 
affairs with her friend, when the lovers came through the arch- 
way, dallied for a moment in the apartment Frank had vacated, 
chatting in suppressed voices, wdth little bursts of soft laughter ; 
then entered the larger one in which Miss Barry sat with her 
hostess pro tempore. The beauty leaned upon her attendant’s 
arm, and his glossy head was bent in ostentation of adoring 
interest, his eyes devouring her face, while she studied the 
pattern of the carpet and the play of her rosetted slippers in 
and out from beneath the dress she held up in one hand so high 
as to allow a liberal view of a neatly-turned ankle. 

Again that unpleasant misgiving — a sensation of repulsion 
she could have mistaken for a presentiment of evil to herself — 
ran through Frank’s frame. Still unobserved by the tw^ain, 
she watched them pass on down the vista of arched doorways, 
and turn into the outer hall. 

“ I do not wonder you look after them,” said Mrs. King, 
Mrs. Barry’s friend. “ She sits opposite me at table, and this 
young man occupies the next chair to her at dinner and lea. 
Their courtship is the theme of universal remark.” 

“Who is the lady?” questioned Frank, ashamed, ere the 
question fairly escaped her, of yielding to feminine curiosity. 

“ Her name is Stone, I think. She is an unmitigated par- 
venue. Nobody here knows her, although she has been here 
four weeks. She is ostensibly matronized by her mother, a 
quiet, sad-looking woman, whom her daughter treats as a 
cipher. The elder lady appears at the tahle d’hote about twice 
a week, just often enough to save appearances. This Mr. 
Veddar’s attentions are unremitting. Mrs. Vansleyne w-as 


ruby’s husband. 


309 


felling me, last night, that he is a young man of excellent 
family and fine property. If this be true, his devotion to this 
under-bred girl is sheer infatuation.” 

To Avhich snowball of gossip Frank did not think it advis- 
able to add what she herself knew of Veddar’s character, 
antecedents, and place of residence. 

As Dr. Milnor had foreseen, the business of directing the 
preparations for wdiat she gleefully styled her second dehut 
engrossed Mrs. Barry to the exclusion of the humors which 
had possessed her of late. A fashionable dressmaker was 
employed to make up the new garment in a chamber adjacent 
to Mrs. Barry’s boudoir ; and she actually went through the 
torture of having it tried upon her, meeting Frank’s dissua- 
sions by the argument that even a loose wrapper should fit 
accurately about the neck and shoulders. 

“ I have always been celebrated for the fine slope of my 
shoulders,” she faltered, staggering back to her lounge when 
the ordeal was through. 

Katrine caught her as she lapsed into a limp heap among 
the pillows, and motioning the wide-eyed mantuamaker to 
withdraw, undid the close, high bodice Mrs. Barry had donned 
to conceal her infirmity, and applied sal volatile with an un- 
sparing resolution that speedily brought back the scattering 
wits. The honest creature nodded, until, to one unused to her 
ways, dislocation would have appeared imminent. 

“ If you vill, you vill ! ” she said, before Mrs. Barry quite 
knew where she was. “ And ven it is done, vy, it vill be 
done — dat is all ! ” 

Frank, to whom her words were a dagger, resolved to risk 
all upon one final appeal. She found her opportunity on tlie 
last night of the year. Katrine had gone home for a few 
hours. Dr. Suydam had looked in upon his patient, and 
been assured triumphantly that she w^as rejuvenating with 
every hour. 

“You will be one of my visitors to-morrow — is it not so?” 
she said, engagingly. “It is then that I shall cast aside the 


810 


ruby’s husband. 


shell of convalesence, and try my new wings. I am not the 
invalid any more. What is it you would do? Fi done F* 
hiding under her shawl the wrist he would have taken for 
the second time during this call. “ You presume upon the 
privileges professional. Dr. Milnor attempts no such gallan- 
tries. Ah ! he is the man superior to the weaknesses of poor 
humanity ! He takes the hand of a fair lady as he would that 
of a doll. You will press him to call to-morrow. I should 
make no public show of partiality. We will not wound him. 
He means well, poor old man ! ” 

“Let me feel your pulse, if you please,” requested Louis, 
very gravely. 

She feigned to refuse, then seemed to change her mind sud- 
denly, and dropped her hand into his, laughing artlessly. 

“ It must be that I humor him, — else he will be tyrannical, 
and refuse us our fete of the morrow. Well ! what is it that 
you make of the poor trembler? Should it not flutter at the 
touch of a young man, handsome and distinguished ? ” 

“ I wish,” replied tfle doctor, yet more seriously, “ that I 
could prevail upon you not to see company to-morrow. You 
are utterly unfit for it.” 

“ Hear ! he is jealous ! ” cried Mrs. Barry, in her shrillest 
wheeze. “ Jealous lest graybeards like his father and my poor 
Guysbert should steal my regard from himself. Ah ! but you 
are a serpent in guile. I am shrewd also — shrewd, and full of 
art. I divine your motive, and I thwart it. I shall see my 
respectable graybeards. I shall talk with them, touch the 
glass to theirs, and bow to their toast — but” — in ghastly 
roguishness, “ they shall not feel my pulse. I grant that to 
you, absurd, jealously-exacting man ! ” 

She recalled Frank when she moved to the door with Dr. 
Suydam. 

“ Stay here ! ” she commanded. “I am on the qui vive. 
You would concert some device for my discomfiture. O, I 
distrust you two ! ” hooking her lean fingers in Frank’s dress 
with a pretence of anxiety lest she should run away. 


ruby’s husband. 


811 


Debarred the chance of giving so much as a reassuring glance 
to the uneasy girl, Louis smiled, promised to call as soon as 
etiquette allowed on the following day, and retired. 

Mrs. Barry twitched her head around to see her daughter’s 
countenance so soon as the door closed. 

“ You would defeat me yet if you could,” she said,, angrily. 

“ I would guard you from all risk of evil, mother. It is 
clear that Dr. Suydam disapproves of your intention, and that 
he has some weighty reason for opposing it.” 

“He is a fool — the slave of prejudice, narrow-minded, and 
arbitrary! Am I, at my age, to be his puppet? I have been 
his tool and yours long enough I It pleased you to make use 
of my trifling indisposition as a means of securing meetings 
with him, and I have indulged you. If he has not proposed, 
he must suffer the penalty of his tardiness. I cannot be sacri- 
ficed forever.” 

“ Neither of us ever thought of such a cruel, such ah infa- 
mous plot ! ” exclaimed Frank. “ O, mother ! do me — do 
your kind physician, bare justice ! Your life is in danger, and 
we would save it. We think only of this, talk of nothing else. 
You are very ill, and I tremble to imagine what may follow if 
you carry out your scheme for to-morrow. Be persuaded, dear, 
that I love you with my whole heart ; that every thought of you, 
nowadays, is a prayer that you may live to see Sue and Paul, 
and William and Mary, once more — your children, mother I 
Have not I a right to plead with you in their name and in 
mine? You have often said that you lived only for us. Live 
for us yet a little longer. Do not throw away what is so 
precious to us — your strength and existence — for the pleas- 
ures of a day. I would lie down in your place if I could, 
by so doing, set you free from the bondage of disease. But 
since I cannot, grant me the privilege of caring for you, of 
keeping you from the harm I can ward off.” 

She was sobbing like a child. Her mother’s hand was wet 
with her tears, and warm with her kisses, when it was wrenched 
violently I'rom her grasp. Mrs. Barry seized her fan, and brought 


312 


ruby’s husband. 


it down upon her daughter’s arm with a force that shattered 
the delicate framework into splinters. 

“ Be silent ! ” she said, her voice shaking with passion, 
“ and leave the room for the night. Katrine will sleep in the 
ante-chamber. I have no further need of your services. 
They are dearly bought. Not another word ! ” 

“ Let me stay within call until Katrine comes home,” 
prayed the girl, humbly. 

“ I am here,” said the Hollandaise, entering, and Frank’s 
paleness gave way to scarlet blushes at the thought that an- 
other than herself had witnessed the blow and heard the 
accompanying w'ords. 

She dared not touch a good-night kiss to the implacable 
face turned from her on the pillow, and refrained from per- 
forming certain offices in the bedroom which were a part 
of her nightly duty. Her mother was already wrought up 
to a frightful pitch of excitement, and she would not provoke 
another spark from the glowing coals. 

'Katrine, having put her charge to bed, administered her 
sedative, and seen her fall asleep, crept with noiseless tread 
to the threshold of her favorite’s chamber, and listened. There 
was no light under the door, but presently a long sobbing sigh, 
that was not the wind, confirmed her suspicion that the 
inmate of the darkened room was not sleeping, and she tapped 
for admittance. 

“Come in,” said Frank, hastily. “What is the matter? 
Is she worse?” turning up the gas, as the door unclosed. 

She had not undressed, and had apparently started up 
from her knees. 

“ She sleep ; she say not one word since you come out. 
She will sleep now one, two, tree, four hour. You sleeps jes’ 
none at all. Dat is bad I ” 

The Dutchwoman took the soft hand between hers hardened 
by toil. 

“ Dat is bad ! ” she repeated, slipping up the loose sleeve 
before Frank could prevent her, and revealing a livid, swollen 


ruby’s husband. 


813 


mark where the fan had struck. “ I bathe it wid warm water. 
De cold water is not goot. De warm draw out de aclie, and 
de heat, and de bruise. You know dat?” showing her white 
teeth in her child-like smile. 

“I did not. But this is nothing. It was an accident — 
that is, unintentional.” 

“ I see, I know,” nodded Katrine. “ She not know what 
she do. She all wrong here to-night,” tapping her forehead. 
“ Dr. Suydam tell me so. I meet him at de door.” 

The hard, dry distress vanished from Frank’s face. 

“ My poor mother ! I should have seen that. And I tried 
to reason with her. I was thoughtless, unkind.” 

“You mean for de best,” Katrine comforted her, bathing 
the wounded arm with tender assiduity. “ Now you sleep too. 
When to-morrow come, to-morrow take care of its own t’ings. 
Dat is true saying. You find it in your Bible — eh ? Dr. 
Suydam say to me, ‘ Miss Barry must not fret. Tell her,’ he 
say, ‘ I will manage so her mother s’all not see too much com- 
panies.’ O, he is goot ! Eh ? ” 

“ lie is good ! ” responded Frank, feelingly, regardless of 
the arch flash of the black eyes. “ But for him I should de- 
spair sometimes.” 

She tried to follow his prescription of tranquillity and sleep, 
but it was near dawn when she sank into slumber so profound 
that Katrine, coming at eight o’clock to arouse her, had to call 
her twice before she awoke. It went to the faithful creature’s 
heart to see the look of pained inquiry supersede the calm of 
sleep upon her face, as she opened her eyes and saw who stood 
Teside her. Before she could frame a question, Katrine nodded 
smilingly. 

“,You had a nice sleep. She ’ave too. She awake jes’ half 
hour ago and ask for her chocolate, den for you. She forgot 
all she say and do last night. You forget, too.” 

Mrs. Barry was amiable and aflectiouate to her daughter, 
and condescending to her attendants, but she wore an unsettled 
air, and there was a vivid, restless light in her eyes. She talked 


314 


ruby’s husband. 


incessantly, sometimes breathlessly, her mind running all the 
while upon the details of her toilet and reception. At nine 
o’clock the solemn process of robing commenced, and the ex- 
treme importance of the work served to sober her partially. 
At intervals of five minutes the operation was suspended, and 
she lay down to collect strength for additional effort. 

“ My complexion is more healthy than it has been in weeks,” 
she said, before the powder-puff was applied. “ And my eyes 
are clear and sparkling. Ah, the sonnets which were com- 
posed to my beaux yeux when I was younger ! That curl, 
little one — let it project slightly over the temple. How it 
imparts the air riante to the face ! My good Katrine, your 
hair has the silver threads in it ; mine is still like the raven’s 
wing. The pencil, Frank. Touch the left eyebrow, carefully, 
dexterously. Now a line to the right.” 

Frank went through the hideous comedy patiently, without 
comment or entreaty. It was a busy morning. Herself gotten 
up to her satisfaction, Mrs. Barry attitudinized upon her sofa, 
and directed the appointments of her boudoir. Fresh covers 
were tied with new, bright ribbons upon the chairs and divans ; 
the lace curtains were dropped to soften the garish sunlight. 
Katrine set bouquets upon the mantel and tables, and built a 
fairy pyramid at the foot of the state sofa, with a marble-topped 
tripod for a base. The air was surcharged with fragrance, yet 
one window at each end of the apartment was lowered from the 
top, and upon mantel and table, and hidden among the cluster- 
ing spikes of bloom pointing the apex of the pyramid, was a 
pastile burner, and the pastile was a disinfectant. A roaring 
fire blazed in the chimney, made necessary not merely by the 
open windows, but for the purpose of ventilation. In a smaller 
side-room refreshments were laid ready for those who were to 
be admitted to the fairy bower. 

The presiding genius was beginning to cavil at their tardi- 
ness, when Dr. Milnor was ushered in, radiant in a New Year’s 
smile and a white cravat. He offered the compliments of the 
season with old-fashioned gallantry, congratulated his “ late 


ruby’s husband. 


315 


patient,” as slie bade him call her, upon her improved looks and 
perennial flow of spirits, chatted a few minutes, pledged her 
health and happiness in a glass of sparkling Moselle, and bowed 
himself off. But Frank perceived that his smile was con- 
strained and mirthless, and that his furtive watch upon her 
mother’s movements had a new meaning in it. She could have 
imagined it to be consternation. 

Mrs. Barry was in raptures over her physician’s transforma- 
tion. 

“ He is absolutely the man of society, my dear,” she in- 
formed her daughter. “ Did you note his avoidance of medical 
inquiries and allusions ? I am charmed ! ” 

Another long spell of waiting. Without, sleighs glided to 
and fro to the music of chiming 'bells, but no message was 
, brought to the upper chamber. 

“ Does every one pass us by? ” complained the invalid. “ I 
do not even hear the door-bell.” 

“ Because of the confusion of sounds in the street,” answered 
Frank, in her simplicity. 

Katrine made an errand into the next room. Dr. Suy- 
dam, in instructing her as to the best method of muffling 
the bell, that the. tantalizing peal might not keep the sick 
woman’s nerves in a useless quiver, had forbidden her to take 
Frank into confidence. Nor was she to know that inside 
the hall door was stationed the footman, to receive upon his 
salver the cards that were presented when he pronounced 
the formula put into his mouth, to wit, that Mrs. Barry 
was much worse, and could see no one. All had been well 
concerted, and was obediently executed. From time to time 
relays of the interesting bits of stiff paper were brought up, 
and appeased, in some degree, the gnawing anxiety of the 
expectant. By the middle of the afternoon these lost their 
efficacy. Mrs. Barry cast away a fresh supply, with a gesture 
of disgust and chagrin. 

“ Frances Barry ! I believe there is some trick in all this ! 
If it is you who have kept my chosen friends from me, I will 


316 


ruby’s husband. 


never forgive you while I live ! Why has not one of those I 
designated called?” 

“ I do not know, mother.” 

“ I warn you — ” began her mother, threateningly, when the 
door flew open, and the’ footman announced — 

“ Mr. Suydam ! Dr. Suydam I ” 


ruby’s husband. 


317 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

Propped among the pillows trimmed with chantilly, Mrs. 
Barry tossed a kiss from her fan to father and son. 

“ Welcome, dear friends,” she said, fairly laughing in her 
delighted relief. “You are as the swallows to the blessed 
summer. I hail you.” 

The extraordinary salutation did not surprise those to whom 
it was addressed. It is doubtful whether any extravaganza 
of hers could have had this effect. After the formal greetings 
were over, the elder gentleman engaged the hostess in conver- 
sation, and Louis took advantage of the temporary abstraction 
of her attention from them to put several questions to Frank. 
They related to the manner in which her mother had passed 
the night, and her behavior during the day. 

Frank asked two in return. 

“Is she worse?” 

“ I fear she is — decidedly.” 

“ Can anything be done for her?” 

“ Nothing.” 

She arose, and stole quietly away into the adjacent bed- 
room. 

Louis approached his patient. 

“ Faithful among the faithless found ! ” she said, forestalling 
his speech, squeezing her fan very hard, and looking at him 
with all her might of fascination. “ I have languished for 
you to-day, my peerless young doctor. But who are all 
these?” Her eyes dilated, and were fixed upon the open 
door. “ I salute you, one and all ! ” Anything more horribly 


318 


ruby’s husband. 


ludicrous than the smirk and minauderies with which this was 
said, it would be impossible to conceive. “ Friends, I bid 
you a happy New Year ! ” 

Louis signed to Katrine to advance to the head of the 
couch, and himself knelt in front of it. 

“ Mrs. Barry ! ” 

She stared beyond him, her fan fluttering like an aspen 
leaf, herself mewing and gibbering idiotically. 

“ Welcome, one and all ! You see before you, gentlemen, 
the admired Susanne — the unparalleled Madame Barri — 
the Kecamier of this country — the rival the more beautiful 
of Corinne ! I accept your homage ! This is the day the 
most proud and happy of my life ! Ah ! mon Dieu ! ” 

Her fan slipped to the carpet. She put her hand to her head, 
and a shocking change fell over her face. The jaw dropped to 
one side, and the eyes closed, as a strong convulsion seized her. 
It left her motionless, paralyzed, insensible. 

Mr. Suydam drove home for his wife, summoning Dr. Mil- 
uor on the way. Louis did not leave the house. The dying 
woman still lay among her lace-frilled cushions, clad in her 
recherche robe, but paint and powder were cleansed from the 
poor, distorted visage, exposing a cadaverous hue that would 
never change until after the cofiin-lid shut upon it. Then they 
sat down and watched her from hour to hour, with the forgotten 
bouquets poisoning the air with sweets, and the merry bells 
ringing blithely without — watched the features sharpen and 
shrink ; the closed eyes sink more deeply in the sockets ; 
the breath die into faint, infrequent gasps ; the nails purple 
and the fingers stiffen — and still no sign of consciousness. 
At ten o’clock, while the streets were yet alive with trooping 
visitors, and the night air gave back in clearer music the 
silvery chimes, Katrine stepped forward and drew the sheet 
over the dead face. 

With one wild shriek, the outgushing of the restrained agony 
of mouths, Frank sank to the floor. Louis caught her up, 
bore her from the chamber, and, guided by his recollections 


ruby’s husband. 


319 


of the wedding-night, carried her along the hall to her own 
room. He deposited his burden upon the bed, where he had 
then laid the mother, and swept back the dishevelled hair from 
her forehead. Cold and still as stone ! Tlie strong man bowed 
before the spring-tide of love, anguish, and despair, that flowed 
over him. Forgetting time, place, — all except his fondness and 
his hopelessness, — he knelt by her, and pressed kiss after kiss 
upon her hands. 

“ My darling ! my lost darling ! he sobbed. 

The bolt of the door rattled loudly and uselessly, since he had 
left it ajar. He sprang to his feet as Katrine ran in. 

“ My lamb ! my flower ! ” ejaculated she, beginning to cry, 
at sight of the prostrate figure. “ You go, now ! ” to Louis. 
“ I bring her right ! Never you fear ! I save her for you ! ’’ 

“ Save her for me ! ” Louis repeated many times to him- 
self during the ensuing week. “ Better that she should die ! ” 
The funeral, if more modest in some of its features than 
the deceased would have directed, had she left orders concern- 
ing it, was an imposing demonstration on the part of those who 
had delighted to honor her wealth and fashion while she lived. 
Surprise was freely expressed by these that the coffin was of 
black cloth with no trimmings except the silver nails and plate. 
Had the daughter died instead of the mother, said the malcon- 
tents depreciatingly of poor Frank, the survivor would have 
enshrined the remains in a burial-case covered with black — 
perhaps white-velvet, and enwrapped with flowers. The solitary 
wreath of immortelles laid upon the grave was insignifictint, not 
to say mean. Then they, her dear friends and ci-devant critics, 
felt defrauded because the lid of the coffin was fast. Still sup- 
posing Frank to have been the sleeper within the narrow limits, 
she would have lain there in more than bridal array, crowned 
with lilies, and orange blossoms, and odorous green leaves, as 
living and sane people never adorn themselves, but in a style 
that has come to be the height of the fashion for the wealthy dead. 

“ But then, poor dear Mrs. Barry had such exquisite taste ! 
And how suddenly she went off at the last ! I was near fainting 


320 


ruby’s husband. 


■wlien I heard it. Oq New Year’s day, too ! They say slie 
was standing in the parlor, dressed elegantly, as she alone 
could dress, you know, and twirling her fan, just as she always 
did, you know, and surrounded as she always was, by a crowd 
of gentlemen, when she had a fit, and never revived. Dread- 
ful — wasn’t it! Miss Frank will be an heiress now, although 
there are five or six children ; and they do say that poor, dear 
Mrs. Barry lived up to her income, if not beyond it ; and where 
* will Frank stay until her sister or brother comes for her? 
She cannot live alone, you know, and she will not go to the 
Suydams, of course, since she and the doctor are certainly to 
be married in the spring. Mrs. Suydam does not pretend to 
deny the engagement. The doctor is eccentric, you know, and 
^ "o is Frank ; so it is not publicly acknowledged.” 

^ ' Notwithstanding these confident predictions, Frank did accept 
Mrs. Suydam’s invitation to become her guest until she should 
be able to join her family, or until some member of it could 
come to her. By the same mysterious fatality which had 
thrown the entire weight of the responsibility and labor inci- 
dent to her mother’s illness upon her, she was left alone in 
this her sorest extremity. The telegram notifying William 
Barry of his mother’s death was answered by one from his 
wife, stating that her husband had sailed, the preceding day, 
for Rio Janeiro, upon pressing business. She wrote, also, 
by the next mail, tendering the hospitalities of her abode to 
her sister-in-law ; but since some competent person must stay 
in Krawen until the house and furniture were disposed of, 
Frank decided to tarry in the place until she heard again 
respecting Sue’s arrangements. The property was to be divided 
among the children, and nothing could be done without con- 
sultation with the rest. Ignorant of the rumors proclaiming 
her approaching marriage, she descried no impropriety in 
seeking a refuge under Mrs. Suydam’s roof. 

She had been there two weeks, the recipient of marked and 
unvarying kindness from every member of the household, when 
she left her sick-room and made the trial journey of the stairs, 


ruby’s husband. 


321 


bringing her black dress and wan face into the library, where 
sat the father and son, talking of her. 

“ I am afraid she is thoroughly broken down,” Mr. Suydam 
had said, a few moments before the unexpected apparition. 
“ Confound doctors and their drugs, I say ! Can’t you and 
Milnor together build up this one girl’s constitution ! ” 

“ Her constitution is all right, sir. There are not many 
better. All she needs is time with rest.” 

“ And a rousing draught of happiness — hey ! ” interrogated 
the senior, with a lurking smile. 

Louis looked profoundly indifferent. 

“ I dare say it would not be a bad prescription.” 

And then Frank glided in like a sable-robed ghost, and both 
arose to greet her. 

“ I have been telling this young gentleman that, in my opinion, 
he and his brother practitioners are a set of humbugs,” said 
Mr. Suydam, when she was ensconced in the softest seat the 
room afforded. “ Of what use are all their tonics and invigo- 
rators, if they cannot put color into your cheeks and elasticity 
into your step ? ” 

The faintly-tinted lips quivered — just perceptibly. 

‘‘ They will, sir, after a while, I hope. Patience is the best 
curative. Without it nothing else can take effect. I am better 
to-night.” 

Mr. Suydam said he was glad to hear it, walked irresolutely 
around the room, seemingly in quest of a missing book or paper, 
mumbled something about his study, and left doctor and patient 
to themselves. Frank did not notice his absence for a while. 
She sat back in the capacious chair, her feet upon a hassock, 
her slight hands laid together in her lap, gazing into the lire. 
Louis surveyed her across the hearth, and listened to the rising 
wind, creaking the elm boughs, rattling the sashes, and crying, 
like a lost spirit, in the chimney. She was a mere shadow, 
and a sorrowful one, of the bright-faced vision that had startled 
him on that Thanksgiving Eve, fourteen months agone. How 
much lie had learned and suffered in that time ! What had not 
21 


822 


ruby’s husband. 


she suffered? The noblest woman he had ever known, she was 
'also the one who had most of his pity. He had seen her sus- 
tain, without repining, or attempt at evasion, a load the com- 
plicated hardships of which would have driven an ordinary girl 
mad, or killed her. Misconception, insult, revilings, had been 
the reward of fidelity and love to a parent in herself so unlovely, 
he stood astounded that the most patient of nurses should be 
capable of exercising aught of charity or kindliness towards her 
beyond what was dictated by the stern letter of duty. Her 
mother’s last words to her, as he had learned through Katrine, 
were a threat ; yet she mourned for her as children rarely regret 
the kindest and best of parents. • 

He had no consolation to offer her. Had his heart been 
trained to feel the beauty of the Christian’s trust, and his tongue 
to express it, he must have remained dumb all the same. The 
worldling had died as the fool dieth, and he understood intui- 
tively, what Mrs. Suydam ignored in her platitudes about resig- 
nation and immortality, namely, that the saddest, deepest foun- 
tain of the daughter’s grief had its rise in the consciousness that 
her mother had gone to her account blind and unprepared. 

Struck by the stillness of the apartment, Frank glanced up 
hastily, and encountered the earnest eyes of her only companion. 

“ You have acted wisely in venturing down stairs,” he said, 
naturally and pleasantly. “ The change will do you good.” 

“ Do you think so? ” 

Her tone was spiritless, and her gaze went back to the grate. 

“ I am sure of it. You have no physical ailment to contend 
with — only depression of nerves and spirits.” 

Frank straightened herself up, and began her answer bravely. 

“ That is all. I shall rally soon. I ought to make a better 
fight against these now. Time robs all memories of their 
sting, it is said. AYill it ever make this bearable?” 

With the irrepressible cry, the tears came in a flood. Feel- 
ing herself powerless to check them, she arose to go back to 
her room ; but Louis stopped her. 

“Cry on, my child ! You will be the better for it,” he said. 


ruby’s husband. 


323 


in the serious accents of mature age that were frequent with 
him of late. 

When she could see him clearly again, he was standing before 
her with a glass of wine. 

“ Drink it all.” 

This done, he dipped the corner of her handkerchief in a 
bowl of ice-water he had brought from the dining-room, and 
bade her bathe her eyes and face. A vinaigrette was the next 
restorative, at which the first real smile Frank had given since 
New Year’s Eve lighted her countenance. 

“ You are an accomplished nurse.” 

“ That is my trade, you know. Let me put this screen 
between you and the fire. Now you are more comfortable.” 

^ They fell into friendly chat after that. Not cheerful — that 
could not be as yet ; but neither was it sad. There was inter- 
esting news from abroad in the evening papers, and Louis, 
reading it aloud, questioned Frank about foreign politics and 
the topography of the country likely soon to be the theatre of 
bloodshed. He loved to hear her talk at all times, but he led 
her to do it now for her own good more than for his pleasure. 
If the deed had cost him painful exertion, — and it had not, — 
he would have been .abundantly recompensed by seeing how 
much brighter she was when Mrs. Suydam stepped in, at tea- 
time, to say that Frank was to have hers in the library. 

“ Cannot I go into the other room?” she said, looking from 
mother to son. “ This eating alone is irksome.” 

“ The uprighf* position at the table continued throughout the 
meal would weary you,” returned Louis. “ As to eating alone, 
I have no intention of stirring from this cosy corner, unless I 
am compelled to do it. Will you allow me a place at your 
board?” 

He amused himself and her by clearing off the centre-table, 
and, when the waiter arrived, by setting out their repast in the 
most attractive manner. Then, sitting down opposite her, he 
invited her to try her strength by pouring out a cup of tea for 
him. She complied with a shade of shyness that made her 


324 


ruby’s husband. 


appear very bewitching, and while he sipped the beverage she 
had prepared, the old sorcery crept over him. He had battled 
so long and mightily (with this sophistry he excused his relapse 
into the insidious snare) that he was entitled to a moment’s 
rest, one hour’s sleep upon the Enchanted Ground, one drink of 
the cool, flowing waters conscience had commanded him to for- 
sake even though he perished with thirst. 

This, then, was their home ; the sweet hush of the warmed 
atmosphere, the laughing leap of the blaze upon the hearth- 
stone, the luxurious seclusion made more delightful by the roar- 
ing wind and the groans of the writhing boughs outside, were 
so many elements of the blissful rest permitted to mind, body, 
and spirit, now that the day’s work was over. Yet these were 
nought, less than nought, if she had not filled the seat across 
the table, making of the whole place a sanctuary of holy, happy 
tlioughts and domestic love. 

“ Does your tea suit you?” Frank interrupted his reverie. 
“It is the first I have ever made for you, and it may require 
qualification.” 

“ It is nectar.” 

She smiled and blushed. 

“ Let me give you another cup, then.” 

She was filling it, when Katrine’s characteristic tap was 
heard at the door. She had a basket of flowers, and her 
hardy face glowed like a crimson dahlia from her walk in 
the wind. 

“ Dat is goot ! ” she uttered, seeing the occupation of the 
pair. “ She be all right soon. Now, I go fill de big vase in 
de parlor, just purpose because you come down stairs. I tell 
Mrs. Suydam so. I say, ‘ She like it, and she like me jest 
so soon as she see me, ever so many mont’ ago.’ I s’all fix it 
never so fine. Den you bring her to see it — eh?” 

“ I will,” Louis promised. 

The charm was not broken yet. His earliest meeting with 
her had also been beside the marble vase. The spot was dear 
and hallowed to him. When Katrine signalled them that her 


ruby’s husband. 


325 


work w^s ready for inspection, he offered Frank his arm, draw- 
ing her hand within it with care that seemed to her the solicitous 
attention of a physician and brother, — which with him meant 
the loving guard of a husband over a being so precious and so 
feeble. Guiding her through the hall slowly and tenderly, he 
led her into the great parlors. Katrine’s work was a chef- 
d’oeuvre^ and Louis, placing his charge in an easy-chair close 
by, enjoyed the flush and light in her countenance, as she exam- 
ined it, far more than he did the floral exhibition. 

Katrine perceived this, and her professional jealousy was 
aroused. 

“ You not love de flower so well as she do,” she said, in mild 
rebuke ; “ nor so well as your brudder did.” 

Her attachment to her nursling always revived in full force 
when she beheld his portrait. 

“ I tink dat was one reason why she,” nodding at Frank, 
“ love him so much.” 

Her manner added force to a remark which would otherwise 
have been thrown away upon one of her auditors. In her sim- 
ple soul she saw no cause why Fred’s betrothed should not 
have an especial claim upon the affections of the younger and 
surviving brother. She loved Frank the more on account of 
that betrothal. Louis should do likewise, and the bond be an 
acknowledged one. 

“ Loved him so much ! ” repeated Frank, slowly, as ques- 
tionino- her meaning. “ I certainly liked him. We were very 
good friends. But that was all.” 

The grieved reproach of Katrine’s eyes was pathos itself. 

“ He was de most dear, de best friend to you, or you 
would not mean to marry him. Don’t forget him now, since 
be dead. He love you while he live ! ” 

“ I never meant to marry him. You are strangely mistaken,” 
replied Frank, curbing some emotion, — impatience or surprise, 
— that she might speak composedly. “ I was with him when lie 
was sick. I felt very sorry for him. I thought, from the first 
day I saw him, that he must die. He did not think so,” color- 


326 


ruby’s husband. 


ing so redly that Louis retained that part of his belief in the 
story of the engagement which treated of Fred’s passion for her. 

“ I never guessed before that you, or anybody else, entertained 
such an idea as you spoke of just now. I supposed every one 
understood.” 

Referring, in her bewilderment, to Louis, she was electrified 
by the glad gleam of his eyes, the rapture irradiating his coun- 
tenance. 

“ We have all been mistaken,” he said, in a low voice he 
vainly attempted to make calm. “ But I believe your version 
of the story. Do not trouble yourself further about the matter. 
I will explain it.” 

Frank was exceedingly discomposed. 

“ I feel as if I had entered this house under false pretences,” 
she said, in the same key, as Katrine w^as busy collecting the 
broken stems and leaves strewed upon the floor. “ Does your 
mother credit this ? ” 

“She did once. I have not heard her speak of it in a Ions: 
while.” 

“ But your father surely knew better? ” 

“ He, I suspect, received my mother’s statement as truth 
without question.” 

“ And you? ” the plait between the brows deepening. 

“What was I to think? If the tale had improbabilities, 
there w^ere also plausible features in it that confirmed my belief 
in what I had heard.” 

“If it had been so, I would not have made a secret of it. 
We were totally unfitted for one another.” 

“ Give me the credit of having discerned that much. Yet 
one sees incongruous unions every day.” 

His mien altered suddenly into gloom that was not devoid of 
fierceness. 

“ Shall I conduct you to the library? It is warmer there.” 

He did not reseat himself when he had taken her back. He 
had to go out, he said, but his mother would be in directly. 

“ I shall go to my room very soon,” she answered. “ But I 
should like to talk for a few minutes with IMrs. Suydam first. 


ruby’s husband. 


327 


He reentered the library after she thought he had left the 
house. 

“ I have questioned Katrine,” he said, coming up to her and 
speaking rapidly. “ She had that absurd story from Rosette, 
my mother’s maid. Servants will tattle. I thought it might 
relieve you to learn that my mother has not made of your affairs 
capital for Krawen gossip. Katrine is sadly troubled. She 
fears you are displeased with her.” 

“ I am not. I have no right to be. Send her to me — 
please.” 

, Louis delivered her message to the flower merchant, and went 
out into the windy night. For two hours he buffeted the blast, 
tramping up one street and down another, like a lashed and 
goaded creature that could not break his harness, and whose 
forces were not yet so far spent that he could lie down and die. 





328 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER XXV.. 

“ Louis ! ” called Mr. Suydam from his study, as his son 
tiod on tiptoe by the door, at half past ten o’clock that night. 

The young man turned back with a frowu, which had not 
quite gone when he confronted his father. 

“ Sit down, my boy,” said the elder, pointing to a chair. 
“ You look jaded.” , 

He did, and very wretched. His lips had been bitten until 
they were swollen and discolored ; the heavy lids overhung 
bloodshot eyes, and there was a deep-red line just above his 
brows, where he had dragged his hat down upon his forehead — 
the more marked since the rest of his face was very pale. 

“ I am tired, sir, very tired.” 

‘‘ You work too hard. You will be an old man by the time 
you are fifty, if you go on at this rate. Nature’s laws cannot 
be violated with impunity. Devotion to your profession is 
praiseworthy, but it should not urge you on to suicide,” lectured 
the parent, didactically. 

Louis made no reply. 

“ You would be a happier man, and, in the long run, a 
more useful one, if you were married, Louis. There is no 
wish nearer my, heart than to see you comfortably and hand- 
somely settled in life before I die.” 

“ I am not impatient for the change, sir,” rejoined the other, 
moody to surliness. 

“No?” said the father, taken aback by the rebuff. He 
hemmed twice before making a fresh sally. “Your mother 
was in here this evening, with a queer story. 'Would you 


f 


ruby’s husband. 


329 


believe it? Frank Barry declares she was never engaged to 
Frederic. She owned to your mother that he addressed her 
twice, and vowed he would never resign the hope of winning 
her. Had I suspected that this sort of persecution was going on, 

I would have interfered to protect her. But she says it was 
her wish and his that his proposal and her rejection should 
not mar the amicable relations of the two families. She really 
liked him, and enjoyed his conversation ; but apart from all 
other objections that might have existed to the match, she 
could never have promised to marry one whose health was, 
she was persuaded, hopelessly destroyed. Frederic’s vanity 
was insufferable, and I doubt not he was sincere in his dec- 
laration to his mother that his prospects for marrying the girl 
of his choice were fair. The dear child is making herself very 
unhappy over the notion that she has partaken of our hospitality 
and friendship when she had no real claim to them. I sent her 
word that the little we had been able to do for her was a tribute 
to her intrinsic excellence, and that our regard for her was uot 
one whit diminished by what she had told us. I might have 
added, with truth, that I had always considered her too good 
for Frederic.” 

“ You have acted kindly and honorably.” A grateful spark • 
lit up the sullen eyes. 

“Only justly, my son, only justly. She is a good girl — a 
noble woman — the queen of her sex, as I have said to you 
before. I don’t know her equal. And, Louis, lad,” faltering 
slightly, “ it has been a darling hope of mine that you should 
marry her.” 

The livid complexion changed to sanguine, but the frown 
was more lowering, and the eyes glowered from the pent-house 
of the contracted brows, as Louis gnawed his lip, and said 
nothing. 

“ I have noticed, with pleasure, your attentions t& her, and 
the marked interest you have evinced in her affairs,” continued 
the senior. “ I believe you to be capable of forming a correct 
estimate of her character. Some men could never know her 


830 


ruby’s husband. 


ariglit. I have fancied that you appreciated her, and that your 
affections had followed the dictates of your judgment. In short, 
— for I flounder atrociously in this kind of delicate circumlocu- 
tion, — I believe that you love the girl, and that she is not indif- 
ferent to you.” 

Louis raised one hand in deprecation, while he leaned his 
head upon the other. 

“Don’t go any farther in that direction, father. I am-not 
very far from distraction already.” 

Mr. Suydam sat aghast. 

“ Do you mean to say,” he resumed in a tremulous voice 
that touched Louis to pity for his disappointment, “ that she 
has refused you?” 

“ I never offered myself,” — without lifting his face. “ If I 
had, she would have been a rank fool, and, in the end, a most 
miserable woman, had she accepted me.” 

“ Tut, tut ! this is fo<51ery ! ” said the father, in half-angry 
raillery. “ Modesty is commendable in youth, if only for its 
rarity ; but there is neither wit nor bravery in mock humility. 
If you love her, tell her so like a man, and know your fate 
without delay. To be sure, your mother harps upon the etiquette 
that forbids such a step while she is your parent’s guest ; but 
this is an exceptional case. When she leaves us, it will be for 
New Orleans or Europe, and your time is short. Unless I am 
greatly mistaken, you have nothing to fear in making the ven- 
ture.” 

“ Excuse me.” Louis arose. “ But neither my father nor 
any other man has a right to speculate as to the probable reply 
a young lady wmuld return to a proposal which Avill never be 
made. There are circumstances that render it inexpedient for 
me to take the step you speak of. I honor Miss Barry as much, 
or more, if that can be, than you .do. But I shall never ask 
her to marry me.” 

“ You do not deny that you love her,” said the father, testily. 

He waited for a rejoinder, but none came. 

“ Tell me you are indifferent to her, and I am silenced. If 


331 


ruby’s husband. 

this is uot the case, where is the sense of these mysterious 
allusions to insuperable objections? Does Frank inherit her 
mother’s malady?” 

Louis shuddered. “ Heaven forbid ! ” 

“Is she in love with anybody else?” 

“Not that I know of.” 

“ Are you 9 ” 

He could see his son’s countenance, and the derisive smile 
that crossed it. 

“ I am not ! ” 

“What, then, hinders you from doing as I wish?” 

Louis pulled himself togetl^er, physically and spiritually. 

“ I do not like to seem disrespectful, father, but you are 
trespassing upon ground which I will allow no one to tread, 
unless invited by me. This is my affair — uot yours. I, as 
the person who Avould be most affected by the adoption or rejec- 
tion of your scheme, protest against the intervention — I do 
not say interference — of anybody else. If I decline to follow 
your advice, I alone suffer from my contumacy, and there is no 
law obliging me to give my reasons for the declinature.” 

He appreciated the extent of his imprudence when he saw 
his father turn purple, and his hand shake violently as he held 
up his closed fist. 

“ And I protest, in the name of honor and manhood, against 
•what is either poltroonery or inexcusable trifling with a woman’s 
affections. You have made this good, pure girl the talk of the 
town only to bow her head in undeserved shame. Everybody 
expects you to address her, or thinks you are already engaged. 
Dr. Milnor believes in your betrothal fully as he does in his 
own marriage, — a belief founded upon what he has witnessed in 
Mrs. Barry’s house, — not what he has heard abroad, although 
he has heard enough, in all conscience. If you were a libertine, 
a gambler, or a drunkard, I could tolerate your scruples. But, 
seeing in you — as the rest of the world does — a man in 
the prime of youth and health, prosperous in business, and 
wdth fair expectations, an unblemished character, tastes and 


• 832 


ruby’s husband. 

sympathies akin to her own, — I tell you Frank Barry has a 
right, after what has passed between you, to expect you to 
otfer your hand in marriage to her, or to account you a 
fickle villain. You have not asked for my opinion, but I 
mean you shall have it ; ” letting his clenched hand drop on 
the table with a prodigious crash among a pitcher and glasses 
set thereon. 

Wheeling his chair around, he poured out a goblet of water, 
and drank it very slowly and with apparent difficulty, taking 
stertorous pants after each swallow, as though his throat were 
inflamed or obstructed. 

“ We had better drop the subject, father. It excites you. I 
spoke hastily ; but I did not intend to wound or displease you.” 

Mr. Suydam was not a profane man. He regarded swearing 
as a foolish and ungentlemanly vice. Yet an oath escaped 
him now. 

“ Don’t talk to me about excitement. I have a right to be 
angry. Any honorable man would fume at such behavior in 
his son. If you must flirt, must play football with a woman’s 
heart, why didn’t you take one that was good for nothing else? 
There are a hundred girls in this town who would toss theirs 
at your feet if you hinted your desire to indulge in this manly 
and harmless sport. Would nothing serve your purpose but 
my poor little Frank’s?” 

His voice trembled now, to breaking. 

“ Don’t think me worse than I am, father. I have not 
trifled with Miss Barry’s affeQtions, If I had, I should deserve 
to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. She cares no more for 
me than she does for other men.” 

“ Will you put that to the test? ” asked the father, eagerly. 
“ I beg your pardon for my harshness just now, but my heart 
is bound up in this matter. I ask merely that you should tell 
her the exact state of your feelings, and note the effect of your 
communication. It is hard for me to give this up, Louis. You 
have been a dutiful son to me m everything else. .Don’t disap- 
point me now. It is for your own good. I wish I could tell 


ruby’s husband. 


338 • 


you how strongly I feel this. Moreover, I believe the girl 
likes you well enough to marry you, if you were to put the idea 
into her head. You would be very happy together. Come, 
my boy ! faint heart ne’er won fair lady.” 

Louis was standing behind the chair from which he had 
arisen, leaning thoughtfully over the tall back. He did not 
respond immediately. When he did, it was to the point. 

“ The young lady in question is weak and nervous as yet, 
sir. Let her remain here a fortnight undisturbed by my impor- 
tunities, profiting by your advice and help in the settlement of 
her affairs. Her brother will hardly come for her within that 
time. At the end of the two weeks I will make a frank con- 
fession to her of everything bearing upon the subject we have 
been discussing. Afterwards, I will report to you what has 
passed. Will this satisfy you?” 

His father scanned his features dubiously. 

“You are dealing with me in good faith, boy?” 

“ I solemnly affirm it. You have guessed the truth. I love 
this woman. When I began to love her I cannot tell. I 
never meant to do it. I have fought with the feeling until 
I am worn out in the conflict. She may — I fear she will 
— despise me for it when I confess it ; but she shall know it. 
You run the risk of a sore disappointment in urging me to this 
course. I need a friend, father, and I will throw myself upon 
your love and generosity. If Miss Barry should^ spurn me, — • 
as I warn you it is very likely she will, — will you, too, take 
your favor from me? I have not meant to break your heart.” 

Mr. Suydam arose, and laid his unsteady hand among the 
thick, damp locks shading the averted face, as Louis bent his 
head upon his crossed arms. 

“ Come, come ! ” he said, with a husky laugh. “ I had not 
thought you were so hard hit as this. Love makes cowards 
of us all ; but I did not expect you, of all the young fellows 
I know*, to show the white fbather. You talk as if courting 
a pretty girl who has never — to- speak within bounds — 
openly slighted you, and who, so far as we can judge, likes 


334 


ruby’s husband. 


nobody else better than she does you, were like crying for 
the moon. Suppose the worst comes to the worst, and she 
says, ‘ No.’ You are no more badly used than hundreds of 
others have been before you. I let slip an opportunity — the 
golden opportunity of my life — when I was young, because I 
fancied the girl liked another man. I learned, years after- 
wards, when she was in her grave, that her heart was mine. 
I have not alluded to this before in forty years. I do it now 
that you may profit by my fault and my remorse.” 

He poured out another goblet of water and sipped it, his 
back to his son. 

‘‘ Has it never occurred to you to doubt whether you would 
have been happy had you married your first love ? ” inquired 
Louis, respectfully. “ It is a theory of mine that more harm 
comes of precipitate declarations and hasty matches than from 
all other sources of human unhappiness combined.” 

“ There is no danger of your falling into this mistake, at all 
events,” .returned his father, smiling. “ I have more charity 
for the excesses of youthful blood than for the quibbles and 
delays of premature middle age.” 

“ Thank you for that remark, sir. I may have occasion to 
quote it to you before long,” Louis replied, laughing shortly and 
harshly. “ In a fortnight, then, you shall hear from me.” 

Good nights were exchanged, and the two sought their 
respective chambers, the elder to congratulate himself upon 
the tact and resolution which had carried his point with the 
foolishly diffident suitor — congratulations unmarred by mis- 
givings touching the mysterious scruples his son had hinted 
at. He had been an irrational lover himself in his day, and 
no amount of absurdity seemed to him inconsistent with the 
character. Modesty was, with Louis, a distinguishing trait, 
and this backwardness in addressing the lady of his choice, 
these gloomy apprehensions as to the result of his suit, were 
exaggerations of that quality. Love was a notorious refract- 
ing medium. 

Was it through this that Ruin and Despair loomed up before 


ruby’s husband. 


335 


Louis in his fireside musings — grim and horrible demons, 
menacing him with imminent destruction? 

“ I know now what the Eumenides were,” he said aloud, 
when he had sat, bowed together, over the hearth until the 
grate was black and cold. 

Denied the reality of happiness, he had taken to dreaming 
of it, and this was the fruit of the pernicious indulgence. Ho 
had precipitated his overthrow — his expulsion from his father’s 
heart, and from the high place in the world’s esteem which he 
had earned by his own exertions. He accounted this a trifle 
not worth remembering when he took into consideration tliat 
upon which his father had laid particular stress — the fact 
that he had compromised Frank. Her noble head was then 
to bow, her pure face to crimson with shame, before the ready 
finger of scorn that would be directed at her by those who had 
envied her for her goodness and mental gifts, as for her wealth 
and other extrinsic advantages. He could have crushed under 
foot the mighty host of hissing serpents, as he pictured to him- 
self their clamor and her confusion ; but was he, the cause 
of her discomfiture, to become her champion ? He was power- 
less, except to warn her of the gathering storm. A prophet 
of woe, he must deliver his message, and then flee her sight. 
She would hate him when she recalled their hours of confi- 
dential intercourse, her sisterly trust in his word, in his skill, 
in his integrity, in his friendship for her, and in his worthiness 
to receive her answering regard. 

When, all the while, he, the husband of another woman, had 
been endangering her dignity and purity of maidenly reputation 
by the tokens of preference he had showed and she ha4 ac- 
cepted. He knew society and women too well to hope that 
their censure would spend itself wholly upon him, who merited 
the uttermost dregs of their wrathful vials. She — guileless 
(]ove — would be hawked at and torn as if hers had been the 
folly and the crime of concealing it. She would hate him. Ho 
could scarcely continue to respect her, as he did now, if she did 
not turn from him in loathing. 


336 


ruby’s husband. 


“ I know now what tli^ Eiimenides were,” he said, when he 
liad reached this point of his musings. 

He will not be recommended to mercy by*the most tender- 
hearted of my readers ; yet the most censorious must own 
that he was being vigorously belabored by the avenging sister- 
hood. 


ruby’s husband. 


337 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

The fortnight of probation was over. 

Mrs. Suydam had an engagement out that evening — a 
wedding reception, and a select one. The bride, the daughter 
of an intimate friend of Mrs. Suydam, had lately lost a 
brother, and was to be married very privately in consequence. 
Tliere could be no impropriety, therefore, in the appearance 
of Mrs. Barry’s “ soul sister ” in the demi-fuuereal assembly. 
Yet she deplored the necessity of emerging from the seclusion 
so grateful to her smitten heart, even while she was arrayed 
by the sympathizing Rosette in the mourning silk, white crape 
sleeves and chemisette she had settled upon as most in con- 
sonance with her bereaved state ; plained to Frank of the 
inexorable laws of society, and the demands of other friends, 
as she clasped the pearl pin, earrings, and bracelets, tlie sub- 
dued lustre of whicli typified the nebulous condition of the 
wit and spirits erst so sparkling. 

“ I have no heart for gayety. I think I shall never have 
again. But dear little Blanche would never forgive me if I 
remained at home on her marriage eve. Now, ma miynonne^ 
you must engage not to droop in my absence. You must study 
to divert your mind from your sorrow. Petite. How sweetly 
that name ever fell from your beloved mother’s lips ! and 
none other suits you so well. Mr. Suydam would bo delighted 
to see you in his study, and that strange, unsocial son of mine 
is never unsocial or cynical to you. You will form an harmo- 
nious trio.” 

“ I shall not be lonely,” responded Frank. “ I am glad 

22 


338 


ruby’s husband. 


you are going out. Give ^ly love and kind wishes to the pretty 
little bride. You are looking well to-night. That dress be- 
comes you admirably.’’ 

She tarried in her hostess’s dressing-room until the carriage 
was announced. Frank had not flinched at the repeated allu- 
sions to her loss, or the sentimental injunctions to resignation 
and fortitude. Some griefs lie too deep to be touched by 
plummets prepared for fathoming shallow hearts, especially 
when the owners of such hold and ply the line. Nor did she 
evade one of the caresses that were the climax to the flattery 
and petting that seasoned Mrs. Suydam’s talk to and at her. 
She said, within her single, honest heart, that the lady designed 
nothing but kindness ; that she had loved her mother and been 
beloved by her ; and that these three considerations entitled her 
to respect and gratitude at her hands. Yet she breathed more 
freely as she returned to her owm room, having seen the un- 
willing reveller flit down the broad stairway, wrapped in her 
white opera cloak, the ostentatiously disposed black trimmings 
of which were to keep before the minds of others — no need 
for her to gaze upon such remembrancers — the solemn and 
touching circumstance of her blighting affliction. 

A letter lay on Frank’s dressing-table. It had been put 
there while she was with Mrs. Suydam, and was a bulky packr 
age directed to her in-Louis’s hand. Within the outer envelope 
was another, addressed to Mr. Suydam. About this was 
w'rapped a half sheet of letter paper, containing but three lines. 
Frank read these first, as Louis had designed she should. 

“ Miss Barry : Please read the enclosed. If, after doino- 
this, you can endure my presence, may I ask of you the last 
favor of an interview? 1 shall be in the library until ten 
o’clock. “ Louis Suydam.” 

It was nearly nine when she joined him. He had given 
her up, and, from pacing the room in such burning suspense 
as seemed to lick up his life, drop by drop, had settled into 


ruby’s husband. 


339 


quietude of feature and limb that resembled apathy. He did 
not move or turn when the door unclosed to admit her. She 
was within arms’ length of his chair before he looked at her — 
lifting his eyes then with abrupt and painful effort. She had 
gained strength and color within two weeks, but every vestige 
of the latter was washed away by the Avaves of whatever emo- 
tion she had underlain during the past hour. Her face was 
unmoved in other respects. Her eyes, grave and clear, rested 
upon his, neither in anger nor confusion, and she bowed slightly, 
but courteously, in laying the packet he had sent her upon the 
stand at her elboAV. He set a chair for her, and as she took 
it, she uttered the only reproach he Avas ever to hear from her 
Avith regard to his great fault. 

“ You were very AAU'ong not to tell me all this before.” 

Was it reproach ? Did ever condemnation from mortal lips 
fall upon the sinner’s ears in accents of gentlest pity for the 
transgressor, and sorroAV that retribution had overtaken him 
— that the punishment of his evil doing followed hard after 
him ? 

“ Don’t speak to me in that tone, Frank ! It unmans me. 
Tell me I am a scoundrel, and that you despise and abhor me, 
and I can bear it better.” 

“ I cannot tell you that, for it Avould be untrue. I am very 
sorry for you, and you must let me help you. This letter to 
your father was written tAvo years ago. Are you willing to 
tell me Avhat has happened since? Do not, if the recital will 
pain you. I only want to knoAv your exact position.” 

He could not look at her as he told the tale. He covered up 
none of his OAvn sins — Avant of forbearance Avith his Avife’s 
foibles ; of courage in his dealings Avith his father ; of sub- 
mission to Fate Avhen it daAvned upon him Avhat a frightful 
destiny that one act of boyish passion had entailed upon him. 
He did — and the listener honored him for it — speak gently 
and charitably as truth Avould allow him to do of the unacknoAvl- 
edged wife ; of her indifference and her caprices ; her inordinate 
love of finery and excitement ; lastly, of her obstinate rejection 


340 


ruby’s husband. 


of his offer to recognize her before the world in the name and 
character he had bestowed upon her. 

lie went no farther than this. He dared not breathe a 
word of his unlawful love for herself in her hearing. In one 
particular, he failed in his pledge to his father. He had 
thought it would be difficult to do this. He found it impos- 
sible. This girl carried with her an atmosphere of innocence 
that guarded her from evil as with celestial panoply. He 
could not say to her, “ I, a married man, saw and loved 
you, as a man should love but one living woman.” She had 
not loved him in return. That was plain from her compo- 
sure, her frankness of compassion, and offer to befriend him. 
He was not so lost to all sense of moral right, not so imbruted 
in selfishness, as not to be thankful that he was the only suf- 
ferer from his presumption ; yet he felt the more desolate for 
the discovery. He would keep all else she gave him, since her 
love Avas never to be his. The sweet pity beaming in her eyes, 
the kindly interest expressed in voice and manner, were too 
precious, to one beggared in all other affections, to be forfeited. 
He shrank from meeting the full measure of pain his sin had 
earned. He may have been Aveak in this. He Avas certainly 
human. He had dreamed of Paradise, and, awaking, found 
liimself a perpetual exile from Eden, forsaken in the desert by 
all save one friendly angel. Was it strange that he dragged 
himself to her feet, and lay there, even Avhile he kncAV that his 
touch upon her robe Avould be defilement? 

“ I haA^e been very blind,” Frank said, ending the pause that 
succeeded the disgraceful story. “ I have seen, from the even- 
ing of our first meeting, that there Avas a ceaseless soitoav in 
your heart. I must have been strangely absorbed in my oavii 
selfish griefs not to surmise Avhat Avas the nature of your trouble. 
You tried to tell me this, last summer, on the afternoon of our 
visit to the forest lake. It Avas this that was upon your tongue 
Avhen the dog attacked us. Am I right ? ” 

“ You always are.” • 

“ Not always, or I should h.aA'e understood you then. You 


ruby’s husband. 


341 


perplexed me sadly. I am afraid"**! did not invite your confi- 
dence.” 

A light scarlet cloud suffused her complexion, and was gone 
as it had come. 

‘‘ I wish I had been a better — a truer friend. I might have 
saved you some suffering. Wliat do you propose to do ? ” 

“ Advise me,” was all Louis could say. AVords had never 
been so scarce with him before. 

“ Your conscience and sound judgment marked out your line 
of conduct a year and more since. You then resolved to make 
a free confession to your father. Your mistake was in yielding 
to your wife’s persuasions.” 

“ Persuasions ! ” Louis interrupted with his peculiar laugh. 

It jarred miserably upon his ear and heart — that word 
“wife” applied to Ruby by Frank Barry. lie could not 
resent it, but he retorted savagely upon the next one wheu 
used to describe the latter’s coarse refusal of his proposition 
to riglit her. 

“ She did not persuade. She declined to enter the humble 
abode my unassisted exertions could provide for my wife. She 
defied me to prove our marriage. Tlie clergyman who per- 
formed the ceremony is dead. I could only find tlie witnesses 
by advertising for them and exposing the whole affair. She 
lias the certificate, and she declared she would destroy it sooner 
than join with me in a disclosure she deemed premature. AA'hat 
could I do ? ” 

Frank mused, sadly. “ Poor girl !■ That is the language of 
one made desperate by wrong and sorrow, or the ill-judged 
devotion of one who would sacrifice herself to secure the wel- 
fare of him whom she loved more than she did her happiness 
and fair name.” 

This was too much for Louis’s magnanimity. 

“ You do not know her,” he said, curtly disdainful. 

“ I wish I did. I could plead with her to more purpose 
than with you. For this thing must not be. When a great 
wrong has been committed, it should be retrieved at any cost 
short of life or principle. You must bring your wife home.” 


342 


ruby’s husband. 


“ Here ! ” 

“ Here,” slie replied, firmly. “ Your father loves you too 
sincerely not to forgive you when he hears of your temptation 
and your punishment. AVhat your father decrees in his house- 
hold is done without gainsaying. If your parents receive their 
new daughter, the world is silenced. These are the conditions 
insisted upon by Mrs. Suydam.” 

Louis smiled bitterly. 

“ Your chain of sequences wmuld be irrefutable were your 
premises correct. I know my father better than you do. He 
told me, when I tried to set my real position before him, that I 
might hope for absolution for all offences save one. He has 
neither charity nor forgiveness for a mhaUiance. But for this 
conviction, I wmuld have rent my way out of this detestable web 
of deceits before he had been at home a "week. Again — and 
here lies the most formidable obstacle, after all — a sudden or 
violent shock would imperil his life. I have lived through the 
scene in dreams a hundred times — have sustained the brunt 
of his displeasure, seen his grief, and awakened in the agonies 
of a murderer’s conscience. The crime of parricide is not to 
be courted for any light cause.” 

“I understand,” said Frank, meditatively. “Yet” — her 
eyes clearer and deeper — “ it can never be wrong to do right. 
We may hedge about the path of duty wdth whatever precau- 
tions we think needful, but we may not walk in any other and 
liope for the blessing of Heaven. I agree with you as to the need 
of circumspection in breaking this news to your father ; but we 
WTOug him every hour by withholding it. He will be grieved 
and angry at first. We can expect nothing else. But I have 
a firm persuasion that in the end he wdll forgive you, and be 
reconciled to your marriage. He cannot live without your 
society and*" affection.” 

Louis took a turn through the rooms. 

“ I will do as you say.” 

“ Not because I say it. Because it is right.” 

“ With me the one reason implies the other,” was the reply. 


ruby’s husband. 


343 


It was not flattery, but sorrowful sincerity, and Frank, con- 
scious that this was so, attempted no disclaimer. She sat still 
a moment, thinking. 

“ You dread the task?” she said then, interrogatively. 

“ More than I do death. The declaration may be cowardly, 
but it is truth.” 

“ Do you object to my undertaking it?” timidly, and with 
Iiesitation. 

Louis halted abruptly. 

“Frank, am I such a mean-spirited caitiff in your sight? 
If a load is intolerable to me, shall I cast it upon your shoul- 
ders? I deserve that you should think me despicable, but I 
liad not looked for this.” 

“ I have not yet to learn how readily 3'ou would avert incon- 
venience and annoyance from me whenever you could. You 
have befriended and shielded me so many times and in so many 
ways that I have a right to press my services upon you in your 
distress. Mr. Suydara will listen to me patiently. I am sure 
of this. May I undertake the embassy — or, at any fate, open 
negotiations ? ” 

Her playful accent and winning smile were more potent than 
her words to move him from his purpose. But additional 
arguments and pleadings were required to wring from him a 
reluctant consent to her petition. It was with a sense of dire 
humiliation that he saw the door close upon her, as she departed 
on her mission. 

Mr. Suydam answered the tap at his door without raising 
his eyes from his magazine, but laid it down quickly when 
Frank’s soft step fell upon the carpet. 

“ My dear, you are more than welcome.” 

“ Thank you,” said Frank, taking the seat he oflTered. “Can 
you spare me half an hour for a little matter of business ? Two 
items of business, I should say — one my own, the other relating 
to another person.” • 

“ Assuredly. I can give you three hours, if you wish.” 

But his face had an uneasy cast, and his voice, still kind, was 


344 


ruby’s husband. 


graver. Ilis thoughts reverted directly to Louis, and the pos- 
sible uon-success of his suit. Had Frank, like the brave, true 
soul she was, volunteered to stand between the father and the 
son in the moment of mutual disappointment, and to assume 
tlie onus of frustrating his cherished scheme ? 

“ To begin with my own affair, as the less important of the 
two,’’ continued Frank. “ I had letters from Nice to-night. 
My sister is not so well. ‘ I shall go out to her by the next 
steamer.” 

]\Ir. Suydam heaved a mighty sigh. It was over then ! Had 
Frank penetrated his designs upon her, she could not have led 
him along more adroitly to the acme of mortification and amaze- 
ment. 

“ I am very sorry to hear this,” he said — “ extremely sorry. 
We shall miss you very much. Have you told Mrs. Suydam 
of this — or — or — anybody else ? What do they say ? ” 

Frank’s answer was explicit as his query was bungling. 

“ I have said nothing to any one about it excepting yourself. 
Mrs. Suydam was dressing to go out, and I would not disturb 
her with what would keep perfectly well until morning. I have 
been in the library with Louis for an hour, but I did not men- 
tion my letters. He has trouble of his own.” 

“ Ah ! ” 

The father’s face was more puzzled than surprised. What 
was she about to tell him? His boy’s trouble could have but 
one origin. If she were acquainted with this, she was mar- 
vellously collected in her reference to it. 

“ Trouble growing out of his love for you ; his regard for 
your good opinion; his dread of your disapprobation,” pursued 
tlie ambassadress, in the same gentle, even tone that had before 
accosted him. “ He is a fond and dutiful son. You have been 
a loving and generous parent to him. It is not wonderful that 
he should shrink from divulging that which, he fears, would 
lower him in your esteem. Consciousness of his error — not 
distrust of your affection, leads him to apprehend this result. 
Yet he has committed no crime. And the indiscretions of 


ruby’s husband. 


345 


yoath are easily pardoned by the wise when they are followed 
by repentance.” 

Following this didactic strain, evenly and gently, she was yet 
on the alert for tokens of excitement in her auditor. He was 
serious to anxiety now, but his complexion did not vary ; his 
voice was firm. 

“ What has he done? ” 

“ Nothing lately that is inconsistent with true manliness and 
filial duty. Nothing at any period which you will not pardon 
when you learn what were his temptations, and how noble and 
honorable has been his conduct throughout the trial — how he 
has suffered in conscience and heart at the concealment he has 
practised towards you. While you were abroad, he met with 
an accident while hunting.” 

She paused, and was told — “I remember. Go on.” 

“ In the family that received and nursed him during the ill- 
ness that ensued was a young girl — very beautiful, very win- 
ning, and well educated, although poor. He loved her and she 
loved him. Her parents were in straitened circumstances, and 
importuned her to accept a richer suitor. In the heat of his 
indignation at this persecution, moved to deeper pity and love 
by the sight of her sufferings, your son proposed a secret mar- 
riage, and gained her consent to it. They were very young, 
and loved one another dearly.” The narrator was less coherent 
as the father’s brow gathered stormily. “ Yfhen you came 
home, Louis tried to confess all, but was deterred by certain 
expressions of yours relative to unequal alliances — more by 
the dread lest your health should be endangered by the shock 
of the disclosure. Since then, you can witness to hi^ exem- 
plary deportment as a son and as a man, to his energy and 
zeal in his profession, his generosity and kindness of heart, 
his love and respect for yourself. He is good and gifted. ' He 
is wretched at the thought of banishment from your heart. For 
six months he has not looked upon his wife’s face, although he 
has maintained her in comfort and ease all the while. She 
would not consent that he should ruin himself in your eyes and 


346 


ruby’s husband. 


in those of the world by avowing their marriage. She preferred 
to remain unknown, and in the seclusion of her parents’ house, 
to the chance of prejudicing his fair reputation, and he would no 
longer visit her clandestinely. Dear Mr. Suydam, you have 
been father and guardian to me in my orphanhood. Yours is 
too large and lofty a nature to visit upon your best beloved son 
the anger you may feel would be deserved by such conduct in 
another as his has been. You — you only — can make these 
two happy in the future as they have been miserable in the past. 
Think what they have already borne as the consequences of 
their ill-advised step, and spare them further suffering.” 

She had glided to a stool at his feet, and the tears that trem- 
bled in her voice in the concluding sentences of her appeal 
bedewed his hand as she took it between hers. 

It was well for the health of the parent’s brain that the sight 
and feeling of these brought a thick mist before his own vision; 
yet he grew apparently the more angry at the unwonted soft- 
ness into which he had been surprised. 

“ Do you call this a manly deed? ” he said, in savage sarcasm. 
“ Afraid to meet the consequences of his misconduct, he adds 
to a long course of deception that which is even more despicable 
than deceit — moral cowardice ; thrusts this revolting task 
upon you — a timid, innocent girl, who should have been the 
last to hear this abominable tale. It is in keeping with the 
rest of his infamous conduct.” 

“ Not infamous ! ” He could not loosen her fingers without 
violence, and their fond clinging subdued him yet more. “ Not 
infamous, dear father ! Louis could not be that. You will 
own this when you have had time to think of what I have been 
saying. I had to beg long and hard for permission to tell you 
the story in his stead. He could not have related it calmly and 
connectedly, as I have done. He could not have supported your 
anger unmoved. It was best you should hear all from a third 
person. I had other reasons for desiring the office of mediator. 
You have been lavish of benefits to me. I can never speak my 
sense of what I owe you, IMrs. Suydam, and Louis, for your 


ruby’s husband. 


347 


care and kindness to my mother — to all of us. I longed to 
prove my gratitude by my deeds. You have received me into 
your house as if I were a daughter. I am going away. I may 
never return. My parting roquest is, that you take this young 
and lovely girl — your son’s wife — to your heart ; give her my 
place in your home.” 

“ My child, if your petition were that I should increase 
your happiness, you would not have to plead so earnestly.” 

The man of the world laid his hand upon the young head, 
and searched the moved countenance with his keen eyes. 

“ It is, it is ! ” repeated she, fervently. “ For my happiness 
and yours ! O, if so much hung upon one word of mine — one 
sentence of forgiveness — as depends upon yours, I would walk 
barefoot to the end of the earth to speak it.” 

“ If you had been wronged, insulted, defied by him you loved 
best? ” A spasm changed the father’s features. “ If you had 
not told me this shameful thing, I would not have believed it — 
no, not from his own lips.” 

He covered his eyes with his hand. 

“ He wrote all to you nearly a year and a half ago,” Frank 
said, tenderly. “ When you have read the letter, you will 
judge him more leniently.” 

He would not, or could not, attempt the perusal. Returning 
the paper to her, he asked her to read it aloud. 

vShe gave each sentence distinctly, but there was a mournful 
cadence in her tone, as of one wdio renders to another the mes- 
sage of a departed friend ; and this told more powerfully upon 
the listener’s feelings than she dreamed of. Dimly, but surely, 
he perceived what Louis, in the depth of his humility, had not 
suspected; what it was well he should never divine. For one 
moment his wrath boiled up so furiously that he was suffocated 
to blindness ; the next, a breath of more generous emotion 
cooled the seething tide. 

“If she can forgive him, should not I? He has learned 
the wmrth of that which he has lost forever. Could hatred 
devise gi'cater refinement of cruelty than this punishment?” 


348 


ruby’s husband. 


The battle was won. Frank felt this as she met his gaze — 
mild and sorrowful, although he purposely roughened his voice. 

“ Her name is Sloane, it seems. Do you know her?” 

“ I do not. I never heard of her until to-night.” 

“ Where does she live? ” 

Frank consulted the letter, and re-read the paragraph descrip- 
tive of Meadow Cottage. 

“ I recollect the house — a mere hovel ! What is it ? ” 

Frank had changed countenance. She, too, remembered it 
now, and the unflattering sketch of the proprietor given by the 
car-gossip, the day she and Louis went to Kroywen together. 

“ I have often noticed the place, sir. It is a sorry abode for 
a woman of education and refinement. It is growing late. I 
have kept you up beyond your usual hour of retiring, and, I 
fear, wearied you. Let me entreat you to view this matter in 
the most favorable light. Yon know the worst, and you have 
not tested the good that may be wrapped up in a seeming mis- 
fortune. Will you give me one word of hope for Louis? This 
is a season of trying suspense with him.” 

“ Tell him ” — a sparkle that was not the peaceful light of 
forgiveness kindling in his eye — “ that if, in the review of our 
conversation in this room two weeks ago to-night, he can for- 
give himself, he has my pardon.” 

Frank knit her forehead perplexedly. 

“ I will repeat what you say. I wish it were less equivocal 
— without reservation.” 

“ Say, if you prefer, that he shall have my answer to-morrow 
evening. To spare you needless anxiety, I will add that it 
will, I think, satisfy you that I mean to make the best of this 
wretched business.” 

“ Shall he come to you for sentence?” asked Frank, trying 
to smile. 

“ Yes — or no ! I will leave my answer in his room. That 
will save embarrassment. Good night, my child. No one 
can ever fill your place in my heart, whoever may share my 
home. God bless you ! ” 


ruby’s husband. 


349 


He sat over the fire for a long time when she had gone. 
At last he opened Louis’s letter to himself, and read it care- 
fully from beginning to end. Then he unlocked his escritoire, 
— took out an envelope inscribed in legal round hand “ Will,” 
and threw it into the fire. 

He had made up his mind. 


350 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

Ruby Suydam, nee Sloane, lay upon her bed on the after- 
noon succeeding the events set down in the last chapter. Her 
bright eyes, rosy cheeks, and general plumpness, denoted a 
state of high health, despite her reclining position. She had 
eaten a hearty dinner, and she was going to the opera that 
night — two circumstances that involved the necessity of loosened 
stays, dressing-gown, and a loll until tea-time. Mrs. Sloane 
sat by the fire, altering the trimming of a light silk dress. 

“ You are vastly entertaining this afternoon,” remarked her 
daughter, ending a pause of considerable length in a conversa- 
tion that had flagged lamentably from the beginning. “ It is 
well I am not dependent upon you for amusement the year 
round. I should die of the vapors in a month. What are 
you moping about to-day? Doing penance for my sins, of 
course — but for which especial transgression ? ” 

The mother’s sallow skin showed a faint glow at the coarse 
taunt. 

“ I have enough sins of my own to repent of, without doing 
penance for those of others,” she answered, evasively. 

“ I don’t dispute that. But I can see when you are in tlio 
dumps over me. You are sulking now about nothing upon 
earth except my determination to go to Kroywen with Veddar 
to-night. You might understand, by this time, that it is of no 
use to oppose me when I have once said I will do as I like. 
Mercy knows I have little enough pleasure, if T take all tliat 
is oflered me. You can’t endure the sight of Veddar. From 
tlie moment you set eyes on him at Saratoga up to this, you 


ruby’s husband. 


351 


have detested the mac and all connected with him. Has this 
prevented me from accepting his attentions and presents? You 
opposed my Santa Claus spree with all your might. Did this 
hinder me from spending six weeks in that Elysium, and keep- 
ing you there three days out of every seven to play propriety ? 
You forbade my telling Veddar where I really live ‘ when I 
am at home,’ which isn’t often, thank gracious ! I gave the 
unfashionable address to my sighing swain all the same. You 
went so far as to vow that you would notify my devoted legal 
banker of my flirtation with his particular friend ; whereupon 
I checked your virtuous intention by swearing I would cut off 
household supplies, and save all my money for an elopement, 
if you carried out your threat. Latterly, seeing that my rich 
and fashionable cavalier is as little appalled by my humble lodg- 
ings and plebeian parents as was your former favorite, Duke 
Suydam, you have concentrated your energies upon the en- 
deavor to keep me from riding and attending places of public 
amusement with my present favorite. I am neither a baby nor 
a fool. You seem%to believe me both. That lace looks bun- 
gling at that corner. You had better rip it otf and do it over.” 

“ I know it is of no use,” rejoined Mrs. Sloane, desperately. 
“ The evil is beyond my reach. I can only fold my hands, and 
see you ruined for this world and the next.” 

“ Trust me for this world,” interrupted Ruby, scornfully. 
“ As for the next, ‘ Time enough for that, says I.’ ” 

“ This Veddar is a dangerous man,” burst forth the mother ; 
“ a vile, unprincipled libertine, in whose company no woman 
is safe. I have warned you of this again and again — without 
effect, as you say ; but my conscience will not let me keep silent, 
lie comes to see you in this poor house — you, a girl whose 
rank in life is lower than his. He flatters you and makes you 
expensive presents. You accept these, and receive him here, 
where you have no other visitors. M hat is he to think of the 
marked partiality shown him, except that your affections are 
ensraged, as well as your vanity pleased? AV hereas every gal- 
lant attention, every loving word, — and that he talks love to 


852 


ruby’s husband. 


you I am confident, — are so many insults ; first, because tliey 
are offered with a dishonorable motive ; secondly, they are paid 
to a married woman.” 

“Well, are you through?” said Ruby, yawning. She 
crossed her arms under the back of her head, and stretched 
herself lazily. “ Each of us is entitled to a speech, I suppose. 
I made mine first, and it is a bit of a bore to be called upon for 
another. I had occasion to tell you, long ago, that I am entirely 
competent to the management of myself and my lovers. Veddar 
may be dangerous to most women. Entre nous, I have no 
doubt he is a sad rake, and, equally entre nous, I believe he 
hopes to make me love him as madly as he professes to love 
me. I don’t deny that I like him amazingly — better than I 
ever did any other man. He is handsome and lively, full of 
anecdote and fine sayings. lie is very liberal in purchasing 
presents, and tasteful in their selection. He is very devoted to 
me, very dashing, and, I suspect, very wicked. All these con- 
tribute to heighten my regard. As to my being a married 
woman, he is in blissful ignorance of that unfortunate circum- 
stance. His devoirs do not insult me on that ground. Wheu 
papa-in-law dies, I will show my deluded follower my marriage 
certificate, and ask him to visit me at Castle Suydam. He 
will naturally be furious ; but who cares ? I shall have had 
the benefit of his society, of his escort to scenes from which I 
must have been debarred but for his politeness, of his pres- 
ents, his horses, his honhons, and be none the worse for any 
of them.” 

“ He will ruin you in the sight of the Suydams — will de- 
nounce you to the world,” said the mother. “ You are putting 
yourself in his power. You cannot tamper with such as he 
and not be polluted.” 

“ You talk as if he were the Prince of Evil,” retorted Ruby. 
“ Never fear his telling tales out of school. He dreads ridicule 
more than he does a broken heart. Ho will never make him- 
self the laughing-stock of the town by relating how egregiously 
he has been sold. He hates my dignified spouse, and he will 


ruby’s husband. 


■ 353 


not give him the pleasure of hearing of his discomfiture. In 
the end he will forgive me, become my cavalier servent when 
professional duties tear my loviug lord from my side. That’s 
the style now in the best circles. Veddar keeps me posted on 
such subjects. He says, by the way, that Duke Suydam is 
certainly to marry that tame little Barry girl. You see I have 
a respectable precedent for my flirtation. Your saint is not so 
white as you have painted him. I’ll wager my wedding-ring 
that he will marry — take her to heal his lacerated heart. 
I’ve chalked out my course in case he does. I’ll let them go 
off upon their honeymoon trip, and then wait upon papa-iu-law, 
hair dishevelled, eyes glaring, face whitewashed, certificate in 
hand, and have my say. The old gentleman will have a stroke 
— ras the cockneys say — ‘ immediate.’ Krawen will delight over 
the scandal in high life ; the spurious bride will be frantic ; there 
will be a divorce and a liberal maintenance for me. I rather 
think that would be the best card my fate could play for me.” 

“ Shame, shame ! ” Mrs. Sloane’s truer womanhood arose 
outraged at the vile programme. “ What harm has this poor 
girl, who has just buried her mother, ever done you, that you 
should want to disgrace her for life ? ” 

“ As to her having buried.her mother, I don’t know that she 
is to be pitied on that score,” returned Ruby, recklessly unfeel- 
ing. “ Sometimes, to be thus bereaved is to be relieved. She 
has money and a place among the elect of earth. She is deemed 
worthy of an alliance wdth the illustrious line of Suydams. 
She wants to marry my lawful husband. He has left me to 
solitude and Veddar that he may philander with her. These 
are legitimate reasons w^hy I should wish her all the ill that 
can befall her.” 

“ If you really loved your husband — not else.” 

“ I care as much for him as you do for yours,” answered the 
daughter. “Conjugal devotion has gone out of fashion — so 
says Veddar. I shall have the less trouble to appear creditably 
before my aristocratic relatives, when Lord Louis takes me 
again into favor.” 


23 


354 


ruby’s husband. 


“'Which he will never do!” pronounced Mrs. Sloane, sol- 
emnly. “ You grieved away his love, w'ounded his pride, 
despised his authority — and you have lost him forever. He 
was hasty and headstrong, but he w'as not wicked. If he 
loves this Miss Barry, it is you who have driven him to do 
it. You might have held him fast, and you chose to let him 
go. But he will not attempt to marry her. Not that his 
affection for you will prevent it ; but he must have changed 
entirely and wofully if he can deliberately plan a woman’s 
ruin. He used to be the soul of honor. Louis Suydam’s is 
a gentlemanly nature. 'V'eddar, if he had been born in a 
palace, could never have been anything but vulgar.” 

“ Hoity-toity 1 ” Ruby craned her neck to get a better look 
at the trodden worm. “We are coming out strong to-day. 
I had no idea the handsome duke was still in such favor. 
Some mothers would take the part offja daughter deserted 
and neglected by a husband who, fjpr six months, has given 
no sign that he remembered her existence, except by remitting 
at stated times pitiful sums of money, as he might pension a 
discarded mistress. But you are an extraordinary woman. 
Duke Suydam used to say so. It Avould please you to see me 
spoiling my eyes with crying, losing a pound of flesh a day, 
and writing pitiful letters, all spotted with brine, to his high- 
ness, imploring him to come back to me, and promising to be 
a good girl hereafter, if he would sneak in, now and then, 
to see me. From such husbands and such mothers — Good 
Lord, deliver us ! ” 

The mother was paler, and her breath came hurriedly, with a 
catch in each respiration, as if heart or lungs were in deadly 
pain ; but she sewed on dumbly. She had given her w^aruing, and 
it had been thrown away. It is a dreary business — this reaping 
the whirlwind, this harvesting of thorns and dragons’ teeth. 
She should have been used to it ere now, and she was, as used as 
a woman whose heart still lives in some of its fibres can ever be. 

Selfishness, cultivated, ripens into cruelty at the last. There 
w'as deliberate malice in Ruby’s next observation. 


ruby’s husband. 


355 


“ I have been thiukiiig that if Dr. Suydam knew what a 
friend he had in you, lie would make you a separate allow- 
ance. I will write to him and represent your friendship, and 
that the sum I allow you for my board is insufficient to supply 
your table and pay your husband’s gambling debts. It is but 
fair he should remember you in some substantial way. You 
sold your daughter to the verdant youth, and you have handled 
a comparatively small proportion of the purchase-money. 
Having arrived af this satisfactory conclusion to our quarrel, 
you will please allow me to take a nap. I want that dress by 
half past five at the latest.” 

She turned her fresh, round cheek upon her arm ; the golden- 
red lashes lay, long and still, upon the velvet of her skin — soft 
and fine as an infant’s ; her bust and waist were thrown into 
relief by her careless attitude and the relaxed muscles of the 
whole figure. Just so had Louis, seen her sleep many times, 
and hung over her in breathless entrancement, lest the beau- 
teous vision should be, after all, but a dream invoked by his 
loving imagination. Would he have looked and dreamed thus 
now? 

I am writing hard things and heavy to be borne by the young, 
with whom hope is reality, and thoughts of love dearer than 
promise of life, wealth, and honor ; but he who sketches 
from nature must, perforce, oftentimes fulfil the thankless task 
of iconoclast. Our early idols were passing fair, and we loved 
them with a haste and an ardor that make the more enduring 
flame of our wiser days pale into a phosphorescent shimmer. 
Lut were they dragged from their resting-places among the 
owls and the bats, and set up in our clarified sight, we should 
find them indeed very idols — not only lifeless, but uncomely. 
Of the few to whose petitions, the Fates, in severe practical 
satire turned a gracious ear, and granted their passion-fraught 
prayer, some have dragged a clog at their heels for the rest of 
their lives ; others, more happy, have settled into hopeless and 
fatuous idolatry — very pitiable, but, taking into the account 
the strength of their chains, very merciful. 


356 


ruby’s husband. 


Ruby had not erred in calling her mother an extraordinary 
woman. She retained her seat, and managed the rustling 
fabric cautiously, that the incipient doze might deepen into 
slumber. No tear dropped among the lustrous folds ; no 
tremor unfitted the fingers for their cunning work. Why 
should she quit the room? Like Sindbad, she carried her 
burden wherever she went. As for tears, there is a dry, pa- 
tient despair that disdains the useless crystals as the playthings 
of silly children. 

She had sewed for ten or fifteen minutes after Ruby’s heavy 
breathing certified that she slept, when she heard the tinkle of 
the door bell. She had no visitors, and she did not stay to 
adjust her cap or collar, or cast a glance at the mirror. Ved- 
dar would not be out from the city until six o’clock ; so this call 
must be that of some itinerant vender of tin or china ware. 

A handsome carriage stood at the front gate, and upon the 
steps was a stately gen'tleman, who uncovered a fine silvery 
head as he inquired, “ Is Mrs. Louis Suydam at home?” 

“ Sir ! ” stammered the astonished woman — terrified as 
amazed, when she observed, at the second look, a resemblance 
to Louis in feature and voice that convinced her who stood 
before her. 

“Is Mrs. Dr. Suydam at home?” modifying his phrase, 
but not his accent, which was cold and stern enough to justify 
the mother’s fear that he had come in judgment upon her child 
— not in peace. “ If she is, please give her this card. I am 
her father-in-law.” 

. Dazed and speechless, Mrs. Sloane showed him into the par- 
lor, and repaired to Ruby’s chamber to acquaint her with this 
new and startling event. 

Mr. Suydam walked up and down the floor, hat in hand, 
scrutinizing the appointments of the room, and trying, from 
these and the appearance of the person who had admitted him, 
to form some idea of the habits and character of the family. 
Thus far, nothing except the general aspect of the exterior 
of the dwelling and the location absolutely oflended his fastidious 


ruby’s husband. 


357 


taste. Louis’s wife must be removed immediately and forever 
from her unfortunate associations. Still it was consolatory to 
learn that these had not been actually degrading. There was 
a bright fire in the grate, and the apartment had a certain air 
of being frequently, if not habitually, used. He had expected 
to see a stiff, tasteless best room, kept for state occasions by a 
family who themselves sat and ate in the kitchen. Everything 
was clean and tidy ; the carpet and paper matched well ; there 
were a piano, book-shelves, neat and pretty furniture, and 
against the walls a few really excellent engravings, with here 
and there a good painting — a landscape or head. A couple 
of bronze busts — Dante and Petrarch — occupied brackets upon 
opposite sides of the parlor, and upon the centre table was a 
marble group in statuette — Burns and his Highland Mary. 
The bronzes had been Louis’s present to his bride, the group 
Veddar’s latest Christmas gift. Not knowing this, Mr. Suy- 
dain’s verdict "was favorable. 

“ So far, better than I expected. The mother, — as I suppose 
her to be, — although plainly dressed, spoke and moved like a 
lady. Matters may not be insupportable, after all.” 

Ruby opened her tawny-gray eyes, streaked with the brown 
shadows of sleep, at her mother’s energetic shake of her 
shoulder. 

“Get up!” whispered the latter, still overawed by the ma- 
gisterial presence she had just left. “ Who do you think is 
down stairs?” 

Ruby sat upright, and rubbed her heavy lids drowsily and 
crossly. 

“ What did you say ? Somebody down stairs I Who is it? ” 

“ Mr. Suydam — Louis’s fiither. And he wants to see you ! ” 

Ruby’s effrontery was usually her closest and most reliable 
ally ; but she was daunted now. 

“ Wants to see me ! ” she uttered under her breath, and eying 
the door, as afraid the formidable intruder might invade the 
privacy of her bedroom. “What does he say? What does 
he know?” 


358 


ruby’s husband. 


“ He inquired for Mrs. Louis Siiydam, and said, when he 
gave me this card, that her father-in-law wanted to see her.” 

Ruby scanned the card on both sides, as if it too had a tale 
to repeat. Then the lost hue returned to her face, and she 
slid from the bed to her feet with two emphatic exclamations. 

“ The cat is out of the bag ! ” she said, shaking her hair 
down upon her shoulders, and beginning to comb it in a pro- 
digious hurry. “ Tm in for it, and I w'on’t be bullied by him, 
nor any of his crew ! ” 

I hope nothing has happened to Louis ! ” suggested Mrs. 
Sloane, uneasily, taking from the wardrobe a dark-blue moire 
which Ruby demanded for wdiat she termed “a stunning 
toilet.” 

“ I never thought of that ! ” said the wife, with naive candor. 
“ If there is, I hope it is a broken leg or arm, and none of these 
horrid infectious diseases. It is lucky you put it into my head. 
It w'ould be just like a man to turn his back upon me while he 
w^as Avell, and as soon as he caught the smallpox, or diphtheria, 
or typhoid fever, to want me to come and nurse him. I tell 
you what, if that’s the game, I’ll refer it to you, and you must 
assert your maternal authority and refuse to let me go.” 

“ I trust there will be no occasion for me to interfere,” was 
the reply. “ Don’t put that bracelet on, dear?” 

“ Why not? It is the handsomest I have.” 

“ I do not think it is quite right for you to w^ear Veddar’s 
presents when you are going to meet Louis’s father,” ventured 
the mother. “ It seems indelicate. And don’t you think you 
are dressing too much, my child? Mr. Suydam may think 
your appearance unsuitable for a person in your position.” 

“ Bother my position ! I am his sou’s wife, and I mean to 
carry him by storm. If he has an eye for a superb woman, 
I shall catch it. I can’t dispense with any of my armor to- 
day. There’s a battle before me, unless Louis is hurt, or sick, 
or dying, or anything else disagreeable.. Not that perfume! 
The heliotrope ! Now’’ for it ! ” 

She ran down stairs, but halted in the passage, alarmed at 


ruby’s husband. 


359 


finding that her heart was thumping violently, her limbs quiv- 
ering, in short, her courage in a very unpromising state for 
defence or assault. Conscious that delay would intensify the 
malady, she went forward to the encounter, pushed open the 
parlor door, and stood, blushiugly, before her father-in-law. 
Her unaccustomed bashfulness served her better than the 
brazen demeanor she would have forced could ever have done. 
Mr. Suydam saw a very beautiful woman, over-dressed, it was 
true, and a trifle gauche in manner, but handsome enough to 
take captive the imagination of an ardent lad who had gazed 
into the eyes of few other women. lie was relieved that she 
was not a bold, shrewd adventuress, who had speculated upon 
her hackneyed charms, and that she was younger than he had 
feared. She might yet receive the imprint of the set in which 
she must hereafter move. 

Making up this case in her favor with a second’s thought, 
he advanced and took her hand. 

“Are you my son’s wife?” 

It was not the tone that had called Frank “dear child” the 
preceding night, but Ruby, not having heard that, was mightily 
flattered by the gentleness of the address. 

“I am Ruby Suydam ! ” she lisped, in a babyish way she 
meant for timidity, laying her disengaged hand upon her heart, 
and looking up at him a la startled fawn. “Has anything hap- 
pened to him — to my husband ? ” 

The last word came in a whispered sob, and her lips parted 
more widely than was necessary or becoming over her white 
teeth. ^ Perhaps it occurred to Mr. Suydam that the more natural 
exhibition of her wifely solicitude would have been to hurry 
down without going through the process of a full toilet. Per- 
haps, being old-fashioned in certain of his fancies, he may have 
reflected that this array of brooch, chains, rings, and bracelets 
was not quite in consonance with the agonized gesticulation aud 
wistful contortion of feature. If so, he remembered, also, that 
she was youthful and underbred, and had doubtless, poor mis- 
taken child, put on her best finery that she might please him. 


360 


ruby’s husband. 


So he replied kindly, still holding her hand, “ He is quite 
Avell. 1 never knew of your marriage until last night. It was 
hasty and injudicious, and you were both to blame for conceal- 
ing it. But I did not come to scold you. I would treat my 
sou’s wife in a manner becoming her position and her claims 
upon me. Can you go home with me this afternoon ? So soon 
as he can arrange it, your husband must settle you in his own 
house. For the present, T offer you the diospitalities of mine. 
How soon can you be ready ? ” 

Buby’s face was one flush of rapture and triumph. The sum- 
mit of her ambition was gained at a single leap. Breathless 
with the rapid flight, she could only hang her head and mutter 
incoherent thanks. 

“ I shall wait for you,” said Mt. Suydam, .pitying her con- 
fusion. “ Do not let me detain you now. ^Ye dine to-day at 
half past five, and Mrs. Suydam expects you.” 

He led her to the door, opened it, and bowed her out — cour- 
tesy that was princely to Ruby’s unaccustomed eyes. 

“ He is perfectly splendid,” she repeated, over and over, 
with slight variations, to her mother, during their hurried pack- 
ing. “ You used to think Louis such a graceful gentleman. 
You ought to see his father. What a fool Louis was not to 
tell him everything, ages ago ! I don’t believe a syllable of the 
rigmarole he told me about his father’s dread of unequal mar- 
riages. He was tired of me, and didn’t -want to introduce me 
to his family — that was all. Won’t I pay him off! I have 
made a conquest of the governor already — that is plain. Now, 
how is that trunk to be got down stairs? Where is pa?” 

“ Gone to town. Can’t the coachman come up for it? ” 

“ What a question 1 I suppose he never did such a thing in 
liis life. No ; you must manage to lug it down to the front 
hall in some way. It isn’t very heavy. When Mr. Suydam 
sees it, he may order the man to step inside the door and get it.” 

Thus instructed, Mrs. Sloane laid hold of the trunk, and, by 
dint of lifting and dragging, removed it to the lower hall. Ruby 
was at her desk when the mother came up again. ^ 


ruby’s husband. 


361 


“I came near forgetting to leave a ‘regret’ for Veddar,” 
she said, laughing. “ Wouldn’t I like to see him when he reads 
it ? I am going to be proper for the rest of my days, and this 
is the way I begin,” filliping the note across the table to her 
mother. It was this : 

- “ Mrs. Louis Suydam regrets that the pressure of an unfore- 
seen family engagement prevents her from accompanying Mr. 
Veddar to the opera this evening. Mrs. Suydam’s address for 
the present is No. 10 Lafayette Park Square, where she will 
always be happy to see Mr. V. January 30, 18 — .” 

She had put on a white bonnet with a sweeping plume, and 
a black velvet cloak, retaining her blue silk dress. Mrs. 
Sloane’s look at her was prideful, through all her melancholy. 
She was very beautiful, and she was her only child. 

“ When shall I see you again, darling? ” 

“ I can’t say, really.” Euby was very busy buttoning her 
glove. “ Of course, I shall feel a delicacy in asking for the 
carriage .to come all the way out here. But I’ll hire a hack 
some day, and pay you a visit. Don’t expect me very soon, 
however, for now they have got me, they won’t let me out of 
their sight for a while, I suppose. Then, I shall be very much 
engrossed wdth company, et cetera, for a few weeks. Maybe I’ll 
write. Don’t forget to drop me a line telling me exactly how 
Veddar behaved when he read the billet-doux. You recollect 
the address? Good by. Don’t come down. It is likely 
Mr. Suydam mistook you for a servant, and it isn’t necessary 
to undeceive him. Good by again.” 

- She gave the pale woman a careless kiss, and tripped away. 

Mr. Suydam was very taciturn on the road. Had he seen — 

as Euby w^as sure he had not — the agonized countenance that 
looked through the upper window for a last sight of the idolized 
and thankless daughter, he could not have been more saturnine, 
liis lips been more sternly closed. He had had a fearful blow, 
and his soul was surcharged with harsh judgment of him who 


362 


ruby’s husband. 


had dealt it. Frank’s prayers in behalf of the erring ones, and 
his own high sense of honor and justice, had less to do with 
his adopted line of conduct than had the resolve to punish 
Louis’s breach of filial duty and subsequent duplicity. He 
had confessed his love for Frank Barry. Under cover of 
righting the injured wife, the indignant father and judge would 
make him feel, to the full, the consequences of his wicked folly. 
He should live with her whom he had chosen, present her 
everywhere as his elect partner, and be happy — if he could. 
As he had sowed, so should he reap. The harvest was of his 
choosing. The parent would have nothing wherewith to re- 
proach himself. 

That is the deadliest anger that lurks so far beneath the 
surface of civil or pleasant language as not to be suspected 
by lookers-on. The servants, who were versed in their master’s 
temper and habits of speech, saw nothing amiss in his manner 
when he gave orders for Ruby’s accommodation in the paternal 
mansion. 

“ Show Mrs. Suydam to Dr. Suydam’s room,” he said to 
a maid, and to a footman, “ Take up Mrs. Louis Suydam’s 
trunk.” 

Turning to Ruby, he continued, in the hearing of the gaping 
domestics, “ We shall not dine until your husband comes in, 
my dear. He will show you the way down.” 

Louis came home heavy-hearted and weary. Had he been 
less busy with his own meditations, he might have discerned 
the expression of lively curiosity in the physiognomy of the foot- 
man who rushed forward officiously to relieve him of his over- 
coat in the hall, and that of the servant-girl who crossed his 
track as he neared his own door. Ho did not even remark the 
streak of bright light under the latter, but, opening it, was daz- 
zled by the effulgence that streamed forth. Three globes of 
the central chandelier were illumined, and directly beneath it 
stood Ruby smiling and expectant. 

This was his father’s answer. 


ruby’s’ husband. 


363 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Mrs. Suydam had been in hysterics all day — the incom- 
parable Rosette and the patient Frank in constant attendance. 
It was futile to warn the afflicted mother of the expediency of 
discretion in the hearing of the quick-eared, gossiping soubreite. 
Rosette carried to her fellow-servants at -luncheon-time a difiusc 
statement of Dr. Suydam’s secret marriage with the daughter 
of a horse-thief, and her mistress’s declarations that the low 
creature should never cross her threshold ; never sit at her 
table ; never call her mother. There was a combination formed 
against the upstart daughter-in-law before one of the kitcheu 
cabinet had ever seen her. The dignity of the family must be 
maintained even at the cost of their young master’s favor. 

Frank, foreseeing this, ventured to expostulate with Mrs. 
Suydam in Rosette’s absence from the chamber. 

“ The poor girl’s position will be extremely painful, however 
much we may try to make her comfortable and happy,” she 
said. “ We should guard her from annoyance whenever we 
can. Servants have ingenious and innumerable arts for show- 
ing dislike to their superiors.” 

“ I shall not enjoin them to obedience or respect to this 
woman,” retorted Mrs. Suydam, flatly. “ It is Mr. Suydam’s 
affair. It is he who persists, in defiance of my wishes, in 
introducing this vulgar parvenue — this grisette — into a home 
where disgrace has hitherto been a thing unknown. I should 
have repudiated her utterly, and Louis likewise, if he had 
refused to give her up. It is a clear case of marriage under 
false pretences. A divorce could be easily obtained, and there 


364 


ruby’s husband. 


the scandal would end. Or the venal wretches, father, mother, 
and daughter, could have been bought off. All such creatures 
have their price. If she will force herself upon us, invited only 
by Mr. Suydam, she must be satisfied with such treatment as she 
shall receive. If Mr. Suydam can bribe or coerce the servants 
into outward respect for her, let him do it. I shall not second 
him in the endeavor. Least of all shall I show her the slight- 
est favor. As my husband’s guest, she shall receive politeness 
at my hands. I shall not now, nor ever, recognize her as my 
son’s wife. A horse-jockey’s daughter ! picked up in a wretched 
hut on the marshes ! O, I shall not survive the ignominy. I 
can never face Society again.” 

Sal volatile, orange-flower water, and valerian are clamor- 
ously demanded by the patient, and faithfully administered by 
the long-suffering nurse. 

Had Frank’s been the place of an impartial spectator, she 
must have smiled at the state with which the lady of the house 
sailed into her spacious drawing-rooms, punctually at quarter 
past five, and looked majestic disdain from side to side, to crush 
the low-born reptile she fancied was skulking in some corner. 
Only Frank was present, toying abstractedly, and, for her, ner- 
vously, with the marble vase of flowers. 

“ Ah,” breathed Mrs. Suydam, sinking upon a sofa, with 
due care for her draperies, “ she has not come down yet.” 

“ No.” 

“ She is in the house — positively under this roof? Rosette 
tells me Mr. Suydam called her ‘ my dear ’ before all the ser- 
vants, and spoke to her of Louis — the infatuated, ruined boy — 
as her husband. Eh hieyi ! ce n*est pas mon affaire^” shaking 
out her perfumed handkerchief as if to dislodge some noxious 
thing from the folds. 

“ Nor mine ! ” said her husband, coming in unperceived. “ I 
have taken the one course left for me to pursue. Nobody but 
a fool neglects to make the best of a bad bargain. If protest 
would do any good, mine should be entered with yours against 
this very objectionable connection. Since it will not, I simply 


ruby’s husband. 


365 


leave things as they are. I do not indorse my son’s choice ; 
but since it is his, it is more sensible and dignified to tolerate 
than to dispute it. How are you to-night, my dear ? ” 

He kissed Frank’s forehead, and her hand lingered in his, 
while she replied to his inquiries about her health. They were 
beginning to understand each other marvellously well. 

Louis, passing through the hall on his way up stairs, saw 
their attitude, heard the accent of afifectionate interest that 
questioned, and the grateful reply. 

Ten, twenty minutes elapsed before there was any sign of an 
addition to the family group for whom dinner now waited. 
Then footsteps sounded upon the upper floor, and the silent 
trio distinguished, blended with these, the rustle of silken and 
voluminous skirts down the staircase, and husband and wife 
entered, arm-in-arm. Mr. Suydam stepped forward, and, taking 
his new daughter’s hand, led her up to her mother-in-law. 

“ This is your son Louis’s wife, Louisa. Make her welcome 
to your house.” « 

Mrs. Suydam had arisen at their approach, and now, in lieu 
of a more friendly salute, swept the intruder a courtesy that 
would have been profound in a royal drawing-room. Afraid 
to disobey her lord, she said at the same time, “ You are wel- 
come ; ” but tone, face, and action gave the lie to the unmean- 
ing phrase. 

Mr. Suydam looked around for Frank. 

“• My dear Miss Barry, let me present Mrs. Louis Suydam.” 
He was surprised that she did not stir from her place, that 
her greeting was a silent bow — surprised and distressed to note 
her varying color and agitated countenance. Frank had had 
many severe shocks in her life, but none that exceeded in sud- 
denness and force the identiflcation of Louis’s wife with the 
auburn-haired beauty she had met upon the ferry-boat, and 
afterwards seen in so questionable a position at the Santa 
Claus hotel. But for her firm clutch of the marble lip of the 
basin by which she stood, she must have reeled under it. She 
was drowning for one second, blindness before her eyes, ringing 


366 


ruby’s husband. 


noises in her ears, choking in her throat. Then she recoveiv*! 
to meet the stare of the unveiled incognita fastened upon her in 
mockery or malice, and to feel what a cruel advantage her tem- 
porary consternation had given her, if she were disposed to 
mischief-making. Frank was a noble woman, but it is not in 
human nature to be forever on the guard against temptation 
to indulge in ungenerous or ignoble emotions. Something in 
Ruby’s eye, and the half smile hovering about her mouth, excited 
her to strike a blow in self-defence. 

“ I ask pardon,” she said, composed, but unsmiling, advan- 
cing towards the new arrival. “ I fear I have appeared un- 
gracious or uncivil. But I was astonished to discover that 
your face, Mrs. Suydam, was not a strange one to me. I have 
seen you twice before to-night — once, last summer, upon a 
Kroywen ferry-boat, and again, about a month ago, at the 
Santa Glaus hotel.” 

“ I recollect meeting you on the boat, and I was at the Santa 
Claus for a week or two this winter,” answered Ruby, her 
metallic, high-pitched voice a disagreeable foil to the clear 
modulations of the other. “ It is very possible you did see 
me there. Where was I, and what was I doing? I certainly 
did not see you, or I should remember it.” 

“ You were in one of the parlors, talking with a gentleman. 
You did not observe me, although you passed directly by me 
while I sat in the adjoining room.” 

Ruby’s eyes gleamed tawnily before the lashes fell. 

“ The Santa Claus is the rendezvous for my southern friends. 
We had a merry time there in Decei^ber,” she remarked, care- 
lessly. 

Then dinner was announced. But the foundation was laid 
of distrust between the last speakers, and, on Ruby’s side, of 
intense dislike. If Frank had seen her with Veddar, and chose 
to describe what she had beheld, and perhaps overheard, it 
might damage seriously the foothold she believed she had gained 
in Louis’s family. She was in no doubt as to Mrs. Suydam’s 
view of her son’s marriage, but she was sufficiently cognizant 


ruby’s husband. 


367 


of the family government of the aristocratic household to 
understand that she was safe from downright insult while 
Mr. Suydam supported her claims. 

Louis’s amazement and disturbance at seeing her in his 
room were, to say the least, not eminently flattering to her 
vanity, or her hopes of “ making all straight ” with him. 
When she recounted the incidents of his father’s visit to 
Meadow Cottage, and marked affability to herself, — losing 
nothing in the telling, you may be sure, — hi^ perturbation 
was not diminished. He was either deficient in faith in her 
sanguine declaration that “ everything had worked out right 
at last,” and that they had only clear skies before them for 
the rest of life’s journey, or the anticipation was not so trans- 
porting as it should have been. When, in finishing her his- 
tory of the denouement^ she essayed the sentimental, and would 
have cast herself upon his neck, he drew back, and proposed 
that they should go down to dinner. 

“ Like a sulky boor,” said Ruby, poutingly, to herself. 

Still, so long as she was in the good books of the senior, 
she could disregard the black looks and reserve of the son. 

“lie can’t help himself,” she reiterated inly and gleefully 
several times while the formal dinner was in progress. 

And once she slipped her hand into her pocket, and gave 
a loving squeeze to the folded certificate she had put there 
for safe keeping, and as an absent-minded bridegroom is said 
to have tucked the wedding-ring into his shoe — “ to have it 
handy in case it should be needed.” 

Mrs. Suydam sat haughty and superbly cold at the head of 
the board. Louis supported her on the right, and said liter- 
ally nothing of his own accord — an appetiteless Diogenes ; 
Frank was opposite, white and reticent. 

“ If I were dying in love with a man, I vrouldn’t show it 
so plainly,” thought Nick Sloane’s daughter. “ She is dread- 
fully cut up, as one can see with half an eye. That’s the 
way w'ith these lily-livered, amiable, dutiful girls. When they 
like a fellow, they think to win him by appealing to his 


8G8 


ruby’s husband. 


compassion, if all else fails. What a plain, uninteresting little 
thing she is ! Not a particle of style about her.’’ 

In elate consciousness of superiority in attire and person, she 
bridled, smirked, and languished, and devoted her best efforts 
to keeping up a dialogue with Mr. Suydarn. Few people in 
her situation could have appeared to advantage. A woman of 
sense and delicacy, appreciating this fact, would have demeaned 
herself modestly, waiting for the overtures of her hosts, and 
accepting these gratefully, not servilely. The Masters will and 
tlie Sloane assurance prompted and kept Ruby up in a different 
role. She was arch, serious, and insinuating by turns, con- 
struing the dignified responses of her father-in-law into jests, 
or making of them pegs to hang her jests upon, flattering him 
by ostentatious deference to his will and judgment, and behaving 
as nearly as she could like a coy young bride who had been 
selected from the entire assortment of marriageabfe princesses 
as the consort of the son of the noble household. The reward 
of her efforts was not immediate and visible success. Mr. Suy- 
dam’s nice taste revolted at her forwardness, her unwarranted 
familiarity, while Louis froze and darkened into intenser bleak- 
ness at each sally and laugh. It was hard work all round — 
for the listeners and the colloquists. Ruby felt immeasurably 
relieved when the meal was concluded, although a trifle less 
confident than when she sat down as to the facility with whicli 
her conquest of the entire household was to be achieved. 

The evening papers lay upon the table in the library — the 
family room after dinner, unless there were visitors. Louis 
was looking over one when Ruby stole behind him and rested 
her hand upon his shoulder. 

“Watchman, what of the night?” she said, playfully tender. 

In saying it, her eye fell upon a paragraph, and she put her 
finger eagerly upon it. 

“ Married in Kroywen, March 15, 18 — , by Rev. Dr. 
James, Louis Suydam, M. D., to Rubina Sloane, both of 
this city.” 

“ Did you put it in ? ” she questioned, inaudibly to the rest. 


ruby’s husband.' 


369 


He shook his head. 

“ I suppose all Kravven is in a twitter by this time,’^ she 
continued, laughingly. 

Louis let go the paper, and moved away from the caressing 
hand. 

“ IlaS she resolved to leave untried no device to make me 
despise and hate her?” thought the miserable man. 

The trials of his evening were not over. 

“ Louis,” said his father, presently, “ I should like to speak 
with you in my study for a few minutes.” 

As they left the library. Ruby called after them, “ O, soon 
return ! ” 

She was making herself at home with terrific rapidity. Louis 
saw his father’s lip curl, and his mother roll her eyes upward 
in speechless horror. He did not glance at Frank. His shame 
was already greater than he could bear. The interview between 
father and son was brief and business-like. Louis was pre- 
sented with the deed of a house belonging to Mr. Suydam, 
and advised to remove thither with his wife so soon as he could 
make it convenient to furnish and take possession of it. 

“ After which time you must depend upon your own exer- . 
tions for a support,” said Mr. Suydam, plainly, but not offen- 
sively. “ Your wife has, I fear, expensive tastes in the matter 
of dress, but in other respects she must have been reared 
economically. She needs toning in manner and voice, and this 
she will soon find out for herself. It is not my province to 
advise you in anything pertaining to your domestic relations, 
or- I should suggest the expediency of severing your wife at 
once from her former associations. She is very pretty, and 
so young that you may yet correct whatever is bizarre in her 
style or crude in her ideas.” 

Louis was fingering the title-deed, downcast and irresolute. 

“ I had rather not take this, sir,” he said, mustering courage 
to face the parent he had wronged. “ It is like coals of fire 
upon my head. Say only that you forgive my folly in the past, 
and I will strive to prove myself worthy of your trust hereafter, 

24 


370 


ruby’s husband. 


The income from my profession is not contemptible. It ought 
to maintain a small family comfortably. I shall lose caste for 
a time, I suppose. Perhaps I should do better anywhere else 
than here, now that this affair is the town talk.’^ 

A week ago Mr. Suydam would have negatived imperatively 
the remotest approach to this suggestion. 

He answered now, merely, “ That is a question which you 
-must settle for yourself. I would not bias your decision one 
w*ay or the other. As to the deed, you can make what dispo- 
sition of the property you please. I shall not take it back. I 
did the same for your brother John when he married. It is 
to you an act of justice — not favor.” 

The wind sang in the chimney^ The father leaned forward, 
his arms upon the carved elbows of the old chair, and appeared 
to listen, as he had done many times before in the course of 
former conferences between the two ; but the frank affection of 
other days was gone forever from their intercourse. Louis had 
chosen his path, and he must walk in it, however widely it might 
diverge from the smooth ascent the loving fancy of the parent 
had traced for him to fortune and to happiness. 

“You had better go back to the ladies, now,” Mr. Suydam 
ended the pause by saying. “ Rubina is having a dull time of 
it, I am afraid.” 

She was. Frank, who usually worked in the evening, was 
crocheting a shawl and hood for her sea voyage ; Mrs. Suy- 
dam, who never worked with her fingers, sitting by, lofty and 
silent, save when she addressed some pet phrase to the orphan 
of her friend, or bewailed their approaching separation. At 
Ruby she did not look once, try as Frank might to make the 
conversation general. The tidings of Miss Barry’s projected 
departure were unwelcome to the lately-installed wife. She had 
meant — in her parlance — “ to pay her off well ” for angling 
for lier secretly-espoused lord ; to pierce her heart and deplete 
her self-love by multitudinous pin-pricks and scratches ; to work 
her up into frenzy by the display of her love for her husband 
and his attentions — compulsory or voluntary — to herself. 


ruby’s husband. 


o r- -I 

o< 1 

Moreover, leaving this agreeable pastime out of siglit^ her 
present quarters promised to be dolorous to melancholy, if she 
were left to Mrs. Suydam’s tender mercies. Nick’s child could 
hold her own in an open fight with any daughter of Eve, let 
her be an importation from upper-tendom, or Billingsgate ; but 
she was baffled by a woman whose level eyelids entirely over- 
looked her existence. Frank was very tired of bearing the 
whole weight of the conversation, when a message was brought 
that Katrine wished to see her. 

“ Show her to my room. I will come up directly,” she said, 
with alacrity. 

" Avoiding Mrs. Suydam’s beseeching glance, she gathered up 
her work, excused herself to the two ladies, and left them teie- 
ci-tete. 

Upon the broad landing of the stairs she met Louis coming 
down. Neither spoke. He stook back against the wall to let 
her pass, bending his head respectfully, without looking up. 
He remembered afterwards that she checked herself, as about 
to speak, then passed on without a word. What could she 
have to say to him? She was too truthful to offer congratula- 
tions, too merciful to add to his abasement by condolence. 
Was it advice or warning that had prompted that brief halt? 

Katrine turned from a study of the glowing grate, when 
Miss Barry unlatched the door. Her dark face was flushed, 
her eyes glittering. 

“ What’s dis I hear? ” she commenced, vehemently. “ Dey 
tell me Dr. Suydam is marry ; dat he been marry one, two 
year, and tell nobody — not his own fader. Eh ! ” 

“ He was married almost two years ago, very privately,” 
said Frank. “Sit down, Katrine, and rest.” 

“ Rest? I can no rest. He marry, and you neber know it I 
O, de shame, de shame ! And I to t’ink ail de time he was 
de picture of his broder, my angel boy ! O, he’s no goot, no 
goot ! ” 

“ You are wrong. He is a good and an honorable man. He 
was mistaken in concealing his marriage so long, but his father’s 


372 


ruby’s husband. 


health is delicate, and he was afraid the shock of the news 
might injure him.” 

“ Bah, for his fader’s health ! What he t’ink of you when 
he make de love to you, and he marry ! ” 

“ Katrine, you must not talk in that way of Dr. Suydam, or 
of me. He never made love to me — never gave me any reason 
to believe that he cared for me, except as for a sister.” 

“ 1 see him ! I hear him ! De night your moder die, you 
faint, and he carry you to your room. He lay you on de bed 
— kiss your hands four, five, six time, and he cry like a wo- 
man. He call you ‘ my darling, my love.’ I,stan’ at de door, 
and see and hear him. He may be marry to de oder one. He 
love you ail de same. O, he’s a bad man ; he’s no goot ! ” 
“There!” Frank said with dignity, the crimson tide that 
had bathed neck and temples slowly receding, until her lips 
were bloodless. “ You are excited, and so am I. AYe will say 
no more about this just now. Do not speak (o any one else 
of what you have told me. If the dear Christ were to judge 
ns as we do others, who of us could hope for pardon ? ” 

The house and streets were very still that night, when Frank 
. arose from her knees before the great chair beside the hearth, 
where she had cast herself at Katrine’s departure. She was 
wan and heavy-eyed, and tottered in moving about the room, 
as she prepared for bed. When she haS lain' down, and the 
chamber was dark, a moan trembled through the stillness and 
gloom. ' 

“ God help him, and help me ! ” ' 


euby’s husband. 


373 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

“ There’s a man in the parlor to see Mrs. Dr. Suyclam,” 
said the footman at the door of Mrs. Suydam’s morning 
room. 

Frank and Ruby were with her, the latter having, been 
invited by the other, Avho had with difficulty secured the per- 
mission of the mistress of the sanctum to this step. Mrs. 
Suydam’s final compliance was, it is very possible, induced 
less by a desire to oblige her young friend than by a dispo- 
sition to show off her boudoir and her boudoir manners to 
eyes unused to such exhibitions. She was complaining of 
nervous headache that morning. Her neglige was perfect, 
ditto her languor and interesting pensiveness ; ditto the attitude 
in which she rested among the pillows, golden vinaigrette in 
hand, and begged “ darling Frank ” to read to her from 
“ divine Ariosto.” 

“ The affected old vixen ! ” was the mental comment of the 
slighted and sacrilegious daughter-in-law. “ She understands 
no more of that lingo than I do. She wants to display her 
protegee’s accomplishments at my expense. But if she can 
listen and look wise, so can I.” 

It was the third day of Ruby’s sojourn under the ancient 
roof-tree of her husband’s father. It was Avell understood in 
the Suydam circle that the eminently respectable family had 
come to grief, and etiquette recommended the observance of 
certain forms in these cases which Avere strictly complied with. 
Whole packs of cards had been left at the door for the elder, 
or, as each visitor Avas careful to Avord it, “ Mrs. John Suy- 


374 


ruby’s husband. 


dam,” who, still in obedience to etiquette, remained invisible 
while her nerves and sensibilities were recovering some feeble 
symptoms — plaintive breathings, as it were — of their wonted 
“ tone.” There was no sign yet of the troops of admirers, 
who. Ruby had predicted, would flock to her shrine when she 
should be recognized as Dr. Suydam’s wife. In the midst of 
the long coveted and now possessed magnificence, she was 
devoured by ennui — a prey to discomforts she had never 
recked of in her day-dreams. Mr. Suydam was scrupulously 
civil ; but she had evidently retrograded, not gained, in his 
regard, notwithstanding her frantic show of loving familiarity. 
She was even slightly afraid of him, and began to have a 
glimmering perception of the causes that had deterred Louis 
from an earlier confession of his woful dereliction from filial 
duty. IMrs. Suydam was loftier and more contemptuous every 
liour. The servants’ sly sneers and covert slights were more 
and more apparent. Louis was morose and unapproachable 
— “ unmanageable,” she phrased it. 

In private, she took revenge for his moody bearing in the 
presence of others by twitting him upon the points she fancied 
were sorest ; ridiculing his parents,' and the gloomy state in 
which they lived ; his whilome passion for herself, and later 
perfidy, and the like. He had broken out at her once — a 
tornado-burst of wrath and disdain, that closed her lips effec- 
tually i^pon one topic. 

“ That Barry girl is dying with love for you,” she had 
said. “ I don’t believe this trumped-up tale of her sister’s 
sickness. She is going away to hide her mortification and 
despair.” 

“ Silence ! ” thundered Louis, wheeling sharply upon her. 
“ But for her intercession with my father, you would never 
have seen the inside of this house while he lived. But for her 
pleading with me in your behalf, I should never have acknowl- 
edged you. She is too far above you and the rest of woman- 
kind in her purity, goodness, and magnanimity, to be under- 
stood by your shallow minds and baser hearts. Never name 


'ruby’s husband. 


375 


her to me again, or yon may hear that you will be sorry to 
learn. She love me — me ! your husband. Moral beauties 
don’t become enamoured of moral beasts in these days ! ” 

His rage and scorn were not so pleasant to behold that 
Ruby cared to excite them again by disobeying his commands ; 
but she liked Frank none the more for the stormy scene. 

With the mean spite of a little mind, she made occasions . 
for contradicting and thwarting her. The two were much 
together, partly by Ruby’s contrivance, partly in consequence 
of Mrs. Suydam’s aversion to the companionship of her new 
daughter, Mr. Suydam’s secluded habits, and Louis’s out-of- 
door duties. The Havre steamer would not sail in a week, 
and Frank, having written to Mr. Langley to meet her at that 
port, and ordered the few essential articles for her voyage, had 
nothing to do but sit down quietly and await the day of embar- 
kation. Ruby had taken a fancy to learn a new crochet-stitch 
from her, and commenced an astonishing burnous for herself. 

“ Excuse me. Miss Barry,” she said, when Frank lowered 
her book for a second to reply to a remark of Mrs. Suydam 
upon the passage just read. “ But I must ask your advice 
about this border. Shall it be shaded gold color aild blue, or 
gold color and purple?” 

Mrs. Suydam sniffed pathetically at her vinaigrette, and 
closed her eyes with a frown. 

“ Those shades of purple are fine,” replied Frank, “ and 
contrast well with the gold color.” 

“ But will they suit my style as well? ” cavilled Ruby, dis- 
satisfiedly. “ Louis is so partial to blue ! I wore a blue dress 
the first time he saw me.” 

“The blue is very pretty,” answered Frank, unmoved by 
the sentimental reminiscence. 

“ But you have some reason for preferring the purple,” 
persisted the other. “What is it? Or is it an impertinent 
question ? ” 

“ Not in the least. It is well known that blue worsteds are 
apt to fade, even if the dye does not rub off upon the fingers 
or dress.” 


376 


ruby’s husband.’ 


“ Is that so ? ” — incredulously. “ It is strange I never heard 
it before, when I have worn so much blue. I think I shall risk 
it, rather than offend Louis’s taste by a color he dislikes. He 
can’t bear purple, or black, or any otlier sombre hue. He was 
saying, last night, that a woman looked like a fright in black. 

I wanted to wear a black silk to dinner, and he wouldn’t let 
me. He said it was only fit for nuns and prudes. He is the 
oddest fellow ! I am ever so much obliged to you for settling 
my mind. I was in a desperate quandary. I can’t afford to 
lose time in this work, either. It must be done by next 
Wednesday. I want to go to Antonelli’s concert. Would 
you believe it? I have never heard her.” 

“ Indeed ! ” said Frank, seeing she must reply in some form. 

“ You see, I have been living so very quietly, when in this 
part of the country,” rattled on Ruby’s released tongue. “ In 
Boston and Savannah, it was une autre chose — also at Sara- 
toga. Only in Kravven T was a recluse. I mean to make up 
for lost time, however. I find that Louis has been out amaz- 
ingly little. It was not my wish that he should deny himself 
the pleasures of society. Indeed, I always urged him to visit 
and attend parties, but he says there wasn’t a woman in town he 
cared to wait upon, or to talk with. What flatterers men are ! ” 

“Petite,” said Mrs. Suydam, plaintively, “let me hear 
your sweet voice again, and Ariosto’s smoothly flowing num- 
bers. They rest my pained ears.” 

Frank picked up the volume, and Ruby chafed under the 
impossibility of resenting the insult to herself conveyed in the • 
mournful sigh of the sensitive creature on the sofa. Ere the 
reading recommenced, the tall footman came to the door with 
the announcement set down at the head of this chapter. 

Mrs.-^Suydam unclosed her eyes querulously. 

“ That is a very singular speech, David ! A man iu the j 
parlor ! ” 

“ He looks like a man, ma’am, and spakes like one,” rejoined . 
the Mercury, sure of his ground. “ I ast him would he wait j 
in the hall ; but he walked hisself intil the parlor, and sot down. | 
He said his card was no consequence.” | 


ruby’s husband. 


on'j 

“Very well,” — which meant “exceedingly bad,” — “you 
can go, David.” 

“ It is probably some one from the upholsterers.” Duby was 
not to be put down by mistress or servant. “ Louis was to 
leave an order at MellitF’s for me this morning. I proposed to 
him. Miss Barry, that we should spare ourselves the trouble of 
running from shop to shop, and from Krawen to Kroywen, and 
do you a favor at the same time, by taking your furniture off 
your hands. But he does not agree with me. He has tlie 
queer taste not to admire the fashion or color. Of course I 
must obey him in this, as in everything else, althougli it sub- 
jects me to a world of inconvenience. As 1 said to him last 
night, ‘ What was good enough for Miss Barry should do for 
us.’ Whereupon he called me a little goose ! ” 

Laughing at the recollection, she heaped up a mountain of 
white wool upon Mrs. Suydam’s pet stand of gilt and ebony, 
surrounded it with a circle of balls, yellow, blue, and purple, 
and went her way, humming an opera air on the stairs to show 
how entirely at home she was. 

She broke off abruptly when her father nodded to her from 
the sofa, where he was making himself at home. 

“ How do. Ruby? How goes it by this time?” 

Ruby shut the door carefully behind her. 

“ Law, pa ! who would have thought of seeing you ? ” 

“ You had ought to a’ thought on it, seeing you never left a 
word of ‘ good by’ for me, and we ain’t heerd a line from you 
since you come away. So, 1 driv’ up to town this morning, to 
get the p’ints from you. I driv’ a new animal. Old Stainsly, 
he’s been a-buying a flashy cretur. She carries up well, and 
seems to step out nice ; but bless^ your soul, there ain’t no 
more speed into her nor in an undertaker’s hack, and she’s skit- 
tish as a deer. Stainsly, he’s afeard on her — says she’ll break 
his neck some day. I’m to gentle her, so’s he can drive her, 
or else trade her off. I was a-thinking she’d suit Dr. Suydam. 
She’d look good before a doctor’s buggy, and go fast enough 
for his businesjs — specially when he charges by the hour. 
Ha, ha ! ” 


378 


ruby’s husband. 


“ You’re half tipsy,” said Ruby, bluntly. “ Don’t laugh so 
loud ! The people in this house have nerves. Everything 
must go upon velvet, and nobody speak above a whisper. I 
don’t believe Louis will w'ant your animal. He can’t invest 
much in that line just now. His father has given him an 
elegant house, and we are furnishing. How’s ma?” 

“ So-so ! kinder off her feed since you left her. She misses 
you powerful. We are worried about another thing, too. 
And that’s the main thing that brung me here. You ain’t 
going to cut off supplies now you’ve got into such bang-out 
quarters — be you ? I says to your ma, last night, says I — 
‘ She ain’t the girl to go back on us that ar’ way. From the 
time she was a baby, you could put dependence into what she 
said,’ says I, ‘ and after all we’ve done for her, beggaring our- 
selves, as you may say,’ says I, ‘ to give her an edication, and 
rigging her out like a dukess, to catch a smart, rich husband, 
she ain’t going for to forget us, now she’s come into her fortune,’ 
says I. ‘ She’s a chip of the old block,’ says I. ‘ There’s the 
right kind of grit into her. She’ll do the handsome thing by 
us. I’ll go bail,’ says I. I said jest them words. I’ll take my 
oath onto it.” 

Don’t talk so loud,” said Ruby, alarmed lest his rough 
tones should penetrate the ceiling to the floor above, in which 
event she believed Mrs. Suydam to be capable of sending David 
to order the disturber of her refined stillness out of the house. 
“ I haven’t heard Louis say a word about you, since I came 
home ” — magnificently. “ I’ll speak to him when he comes in 
this evening to dinner, if I can recollect it. As a matter of 
course, you cannot expect us to do as much for you as we have 
been doing these two years past. You and ma ought to live 
very economically now I have gone. And you gamble too 
hard, pa. It’s time you were laying up something against 
your old age. Ma’s a good worker, but she’s beginning to 
fail. I’ve noticed for the last six months that she is not as 
active as she used to be.” 

“ Pity you hadn’t thought of that when you were hauling 


ruby’s husband. 


379 


her back and forth, three times a M^eek, to the Santa Claus, 
last December, to help you and Veddar play the fool ! She’s 
worked more and harder for you nor for all the rest of the 
Avorld.” Nick interrupted the daughterly lecture, with a savage 
growl. “ She give me this note for you, and sent her love to 
you, this morning, for all she didn’t want to have me come 
among your high-flying new kin. I see now she was right 
in saying you would not want to see your poor old father. 
That’s the way of the world.” 

A maudlin whimper. 

Ruby was pondering one paragraph of her letter. 

“ Mr. V. was furiously angry when he read your note. He 
swore at me’ and at you, and declared that he would be re- 
venged on us both. Take care of yourself, my child. He is a 
w'icked man, and he means to do you all the harm he can. 
He says he can ruin you, and that he will. I am very unhappy 
about the affair.” 

“ Veddar has frightened the poor woman out of her wits,” 
remarked Ruby, with an uneasy smile. “Did you see him?” 

“ I wasn’t home when he called that night. He come into 
the house jest before I did, jest now.” 

“ Into this house ! You are mistaken. I left Mrs. Suydam 
and Miss Barry together up stairs. His name has not been 
brought up to them this morning.” 

“ I seen him, for all that. I was a-blanketing my mare out 
at the hitching-post, as he went up the front steps. The same 
feller let him in that opened the door for me.” 

“ Stay here a moment,” said Ruby, hurriedly. “ I’ll be 
down directly.” 

Mr. Suydam’s bed-room was shut off from his study by 
folding-doors, fitting together not quite tightly, as Ruby had 
remarked at her only visit to the latter. She slipped into the 
chamber, which was untenanted, and peeped through the crack. 

The bolt was not caught by the socket — the interstice fully 
half an inch wide. Mr. Suydam sat in his arm-chair, his 
back to the eaves-dropper. Across the table, and facing her, 


880 


ruby’s husband. 


Avas Veddar, his features alive with evil cunning, reading aloud 
one of a little heap of letters that lay before him. 

Nick waited, not one, but ten minutes, fidgeting from win- 
dow to window, uncorking essence bottles, staring at pictures, 
sounding tables and cabinets, and exerting the finest powers of 
his godlike mind in the estimate of how much the “ hull lot 
mought a’ cost when it was new.” Finally, Ruby came down 
to him, equipped for riding. 

She had a scared look, and her manner was flurried, while 
she tried to speak naturally. 

“ I am going home with you, pa. I should like to have a 
peep at the old place again, and ma seems so lonely ! Louis 
will come for me. You said you had your horse and buggy 
here — didn’t you ? ” 

Nick was pleased and alert. The flashy mare was speedily 
untied and unblanketed, and the massive front door shut them 
out w'ith a solemn bang. No one had noticed their departure. 

Dr. Suydam was home earlier than usual to dinner that day. 
The parlors were unoccupied, he observed, in passing the open 
door. He had taken the post-office in his homeward route, 
and had letters for his father, mother, and Frank. Those 
for the ladies he delivered to Rosette, who met him on the 
stairs. The incomparable had a trick of intercepting her 
handsome master in passages and upon landings, for the pur- 
pose of dropping him coquettish courtesies, shedding upon him 
bewitching smiles, and when he was more absent-minded than 
ordinary, offering a coy “ Bon jour^ monsieur.” 

“ Et cela f ” she said, pointing to the^ envelope he retained. 
“ Voulez-vous que je la qtrenneP” 

Louis frowned at her pert tone and action. 

“ 1 shall deliver it myself.” 

He rapped at his father’s door. There ■was no response. 

“ 11 n’y est joas, je crois” said Rosette, lingering officiously 
near. 

Impatient at her pertinacious meddling, Louis entered with- 
out a second knock. All was dark save for the reflection of the 


ruby’s husband. 


381 


street lamp upon the wall. The fire in the pirate had burned 
out, and, mingled with the whistling moan of the wind in the 
chimney, was an odd, stifled sound, like the breathing of an over- 
tired dumb beast. The physician’s hand trembled violently in 
striking a match and touching a gas-burner. This done, ho 
beheld what he had feared, — a senseless head lying loosely 
against the back of the old elbow-chair, — the eyes closed, and 
the mottled, impurpled skin telling but too plainly what was the 
euemy that had struck a sure blow at life’s citadel. 

It was not until his second visit to the apartment, two hours 
later, that Louis noticed the signs of his father’s occupation at 
the moment of his seizure. A small packet of letters, tied 
with red tape, was inscribed with his address, and upon a 
sheet of paper near by were these words : — 

“ Louis, T enclose to you the proofs of the indelible dis- 
gi’ace — ” 

The pen had fallen there. The proud heart had broken at 
the dread word. 

The enclosure was examined that night, as the son watched 
alone by the death-bed of his father. Ruby had not written 
many letters to her admirer, but these few were sufficient to 
convict her of infidelity in word, if not in deed, to her marriage 
vows. Read by Louis, in the light of his acquaintance with 
Veddar’s character ; her acknowledgment of presents received ; 
her acceptance of invitations to visit this and that place of 
amusement ; her appointment of places of meeting, joined to 
the levity of her address, and such appellations as'“ Dear Ved- 
dar,” “ My most constant knight,” “ Ever faithful friend,” and 
others not less objectionable, — established her criminality be- 
yond dispute. 

“ And this is the vile weapon that has let out your life-blood, 
my father ! ” murmured Louis, passionately, laying his burning 
forehead upon the palsied hand. “ It is well for you that you 
can die. I am young and strong, and life is likely to be long 
as it is hateful. Father, if you can hear me, grant me some 
token of forgiveness that shall help me bear the load.” 


382 


ruby’s husband. 


No answer except the heavy breathing. The eyelids did not 
quiver or rise ; the purple complexion was grayish as the night 
wore on ; the turgid veins of brow and neck pulsed more 
feebly ; the extremities grew colder, until, just at daybreak, 
Nature ceased to battle — the heart was still. ^ 

And the last word he had written — his latest thought — was 
disgrace / 

Was Louis to blame if he recollected this above everything 
.else, when the following note was brought to his room at 
eight o’clock — brought to him, as he mourned apart in exceed- 
ing and unspeakable bitterness ? 

“My dear Dr. Suydam: I am in great distress. As 
Ruby and her father were comiug home yesterday afternoon, 
their horse took fright at a train of cars, ran away, and threw 
them both out. Mr. Sloane’s injuries are comparatively slight. 
Ruby struck her head in falling, and she still lies very ill. A 
strange physician — Dr. Marshall — was called in by one of 
the men who brought her home. He thinks her condition 
critical. Can you, will 'you come to her without delay? You 
are my only hope. 

• “ Very truly, Agnes Sloane.” 

“ Another trick ! A transparent subterfuge to inveigle me 
into their accursed den ! They cannot leave me aloue even 
oil this day ! ” 

The mother’s note was flung into the fire, and the mourner 
sat still, and alone with his woe. 

Ilis door was still locked at noon, when Frank tapped at it. 

“ Who is it? ” was the hoarse response. 

“ It is I, Louis. I must see you.” 

He turned the key, and showed her, at the half-open door, a 
face that had grown suddenly old, and was seamed as by the 
ploughshares of many years and sorrows. 

“ I am sorry to disturb you, but my tidings cannot wait. I 
have just had a letter from Mrs. Sloane. There has been an 
accident. Your wife is hurt.” 


ruby’s husband. 


383 


Pie read the letter she placed in his hand. 

Mrs. Sloane, having heard of Mr. Snydam’s death, and 
doubting whether her former note had reached Dr. Snydam, 
took the liberty of begging Miss Barry to inform that gentleman 
of his wife’s danger. She had remained unconscious ever since 
she was brought home, and, fever having set in, the doctor gave 
little hope of her recovery. 

Louis returned the envelope to Frank with a discordant 
laugh. 

“ If this were the only summons I had ever received to the 
bedside of the interesting sufferer, humanity might move me 
to go to her. You remember in what high health she was 
when we met her on the ferry-boat last summer? I had had, 
that morning, intelligence that she was in a decline, and unable 
to leave her bed. She may have been thrown from the car- 
riage and slightly bruised. If I were to visit her, she would, 
doubtless, simulate delirium, as she has simulated many other 
things. I must have other proofs of her injuries than her moth- 
er’s Avord before I pay any attention to these pathetic epistles.” 

Frank looked uneasy and unhappy. 

“ I am sure this is no deception. Mrs. Sloane is, you have 
told me, a sensible woman. She would not dar» attempt to 
dupe you at a time like this. You can do no harm to yourself 
by going. If the danger should be grave as she imagines, you 
will never forgive yourself for neglecting the summons.” 

“Never forgive myself?” repeated Louis, his eyes drearily 
vacant. “ Having already committed the unpardonable sin, I 
can afford to be reckless. Don’t urge me, Frank. You are 
only distressing yourself in vain. I would not go near that 
woman if I knew that she Avas dying.” 

“ This is your answer? ” 

Frank searched his face, fierce and gloomy, for a ray of 
better resolve. 

“ It is.” 

“ May I send Dr. Milnor to ascertain the truth? ” 

“ If you wish to add ridicule to disgrace.” 


384 


ruby’s husband. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

About three o’clock that afternoon, a hired carriage stopped 
before the cottage on the marshlands, and a lady dressed in 
mourning, her features wrapped in a long crape veil, alighted. 

Nick answered her knock. His arm was in a sling, and he 
wore a black patch upon one cheek, but there was nobody to 
attend to him if he played the invalid ; so he had been dozing 
away the slow hours upon the kitchen settle, a wet towel upon 
his aching head. He was horribly ill-humored, and looked 
like a cutthroat. 

Frank blenched slightly in saying, “ I am Miss Barry. You 
may have heard my name from Mrs. Suydam. I called to 
inquire how she is now.” 

“Bad as»she can be. Why ain’t her husband been to see 
her?” 

“ He is in great affliction, and unfit to act or think for hinv 
self. Mrs. Sloane wrote to me. Can I see her for a moment?” 

Nick grunted dubiously, opened the parlor door, and went off 
M’ith the message to his wife. Returning, presently, less cross, 
but more serious, he asked her to walk up stairs. 

Mrs. Sloane met her on the threshold of Ruby’s chamber. 

“ It was kind in you to come,” she said, as Frank held out 
her hand. “ She will not know you, and I could not leave 
her,” she continued, seeing the visitor glance at the bed. “ She 
talks a great deal now, but she has recognized no one.” 

The mother had, several times, bound up the rich profusion 
of long hair, the weight of which, it seemed, must oppress the 
liot head ; but the incessant motion of the sick woman soon 


ruby’s husband. 


885 


dislodged it. She had pulled it down just before Frank’s en- 
trance, and was winding it tightly about her fingers, burnishing 
the smooth coils with many a loving stroke, and prattling like 
a baby. 

Frank put her cool palm upon her forehead, and she laughed 
in looking up at her. 

“ He says I am the ‘ fair one with golden locks.’ He 
called me so when we were dancing the Lancers. I was dressed 
in white — a piece of a cloud I tore off when we were in the 
Kaatskills, and I had a rainbow for a head-dress. He gave me 
a diamond ring — did you know it? Pearls, emeralds, and 
turquoises are such cheap trash ! And when I am at home” — 
whispering with a droll twinkle of the eye — “I live in a dog 
kennel.” 

Nothing more rational or connected passed her lips while 
Frank was with her. She suffered little pain, and Mrs. Sloaue 
dwelt upon this symptom as hopeful. Miss Barry did not add 
to her uneasiness by controverting her opinion. 

“ I will either return myself, and watch with her to-night, 
or I will send a nurse whom you can trust,” she promised at 
parting. “ If I can leave Mrs. Suydam to-morrow, I shall 
certainly see you again. The next day is that fixed upon for 
the funeral, and on the following I sail for Europe.” 

She turned back when about to quit the room, approached 
the bed, and gazed earnestly and long upon her who lay there. 
Sh^ carried the picture with her to many lands and through 
j many years. 

I The lips were vivid scarlet, the cheeks like damask roses ; the 
eyes, widely opened, were afire with the sultry glare of fever ; 
the teeth shone continually in a meaningless smile ; and the rare 
wealth of dusky-red hair framed the face, and rolled in high 
billows over arms, pillows, and bosom. She reminded the gazer 
of a gorgeous tropical plant, that, set in too warm a soil, un- 
watched and unpruned, was blossoming itself to death. 

. “ If Dr. Suydam could spare time for a single visit, it would 
be a great comfort to me,” said Mrs. Sloane at the door. “ I 
have no right to ask it, but she is my all.” 


386 


ruby’s husband. 


Frank returned the grateful pressure of her toil-worn fingers 
with one of hearty sympathy. 

“ You may expect him this evening, I think and hope. When 
he knows how ill she is, he will not stay away.” 

The rain of sorrow quickens into germination many seeds 
that have hitherto lain dormant in the heart, unsuspected by 
others, sca:rcely known to the possessor. Mrs. Suydam did not 
mourn her husband as a more loving and beloved wife must 
have done, but his death was a great shock, succeeded by a 
sense of loneliness and need, now that the shelter of his name 
and nominal protection w^as no longer hers. At such a mo- 
ment, the contrast between the care-free isolation of girlhood 
and the desolation of the widowed intrudes itself upon the 
mind of the least imaginative. The one was embarkation upon 
an untried sea, the other is shipwreck upon a desert shore. | 
Between lies a vast main of memories, of buried hopes, dead • 
joys, loves that shall know no- resurrection until that other and j 
gloomier ocean shall be overpassed. 

The hostess met her young friend at dinner, calm, sad, and ^ 
kindly — less prone to dwell upon her own griefs, and more alive 
to the happiness and well-being of those about her, than she 
had appeared in many months. She was very solicitous about 
Louis, particularly when Frank had told her of Ruby’s condi- 
tion. 

“ He has eaten nothing all day,” she said. “ He should go 
at once to see the unhappy creature, but he will sink undei^the 
trial. He was greatly attached to his father — poor boy! and 
I have no doubt it is the thought that all was not quite right 
between them at the last that now oppresses him. Frank, 
dear, w^ould you mind, if you have finished your dinner, taking 
a small waiter up to him, and begging him, in my name, to eat 
a few mouthfuls? If he will only take a biscuit and a cup of 
coffee, it will sensibly refresh him.” 

Frank would not mind it at all, she stated promptly. Sl>e 
might have added what she was too unselfish even to think, 
viz., that it had been her life-long vocation to do disagreeable 


ruby’s husband. 


387 


tasks, which should devolve, by right, upon those who foisted 
I' them on her wihing shoulders. She was desirous to oblige 
I the mother and befriend the son ; yet her knees shook under her 
\ in the ascent of the long staircase, and she paused without the 
[ locked chamber door to breathe a prayer for strength and wis- 
dom, ere she requested admittance, 
j “ May I come in?’^ she asked, when Louis undid the bolt 
: and looked into the passage. 

“ If you wish.” 

i He was haggard, and moved like one utterly exhausted by 
t mental or physical agony. Frank set the tray upon a stand, 
and delivered her message. 

“ Now,” she added, with the aifectionate decision of an elder 
‘ sister, “ I want you to sit down and eat — or make the effort — 
while your coffee is hot. Your fire needs replenishing.”^ 

She took up the tongs, and laid lump after lump of sea coal 
upon the low embers ; put on the blow'er, brushed up the hearth, 
and lowered the window curtains to shut out stray draughts, 
and to induce an aspect of cosy cheerfulness in the bleak room. 
The coffee refreshed Louis’s parched throat, warmed and 
strengthened his system. He looked and felt better when 
Frank finished her round of the apartment by putting in order 
the dusty centre-table, and setting back the stand with the tray. 

“ Can you listen to me for a few minutes? ” she said, softly, 
not timidly, coming to the back of his chair and resting her 
h^d upon it. 

He bowed assent. 

“I went, this afternoon, to see Ruby. She is very ill. All 
you have been told about the accident and her injuries is true. 
I am afraid we do not know the worst. Dr. Milnor has gone 
out to her, at my request. Katrine is engaged as nurse, Mrs. 
Sloane being the only woman in the house. She cannot go 
iiutil to-morrow, how'ever, on account of household duties. That 
poor mother must not be left alone with her raving daughter all 
night. Will you be her assistant — or shall I ? ” 

A long pause, in which Frank heard the beats of her brave 
yet anxious heart. 


388 


ruby’s husband. 


“Did you see her?” inquired Louis then, without changing 
his position. 

“ I did. She is entirely delirious. I fear her brain has re- 
ceived incurable injury. She did not know me. She will not 
know you.” 

Another silence, longer and deeper than before. Frank’s 
hand stole from the back of the chair to the shoulder of the 
thoughtful occupant. 

“ ‘ For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly 
Father will also forgive you.’ The promise is sure, Louis.” 

“ You do not know how much I have to forgive,” he an- 
swered, lowly. 

“ More than He has to forgive you ? ” 

She was afraid she had gone too far, when the reply did not 
come immediately. It was satisfactory when it did. 

“ I will go.” 

“ Thank you.” 

The hand left his shoulder. He glanced around, but she had 
gone. 

They met but once more face to face, and then their eyes 
looked each into the other’s, above the grave of the father and 
the friend, as the busy spades were hurling the snow and earth 
upon the coffin. It was a furtive glance on one side — gentle 
and compassionate on the other. Then the widow took the 
arm of her youngest son ; the elder offered his to Frank, and 
the procession resought the carriages that had brought them 
thither. Louis’s buggy stood at the cemetery gate. He had 
explained to his mother that he could not accompany her home. 

“ He has gone back to that unfortunate girl,” she said, when 
John inquired where he was. “His first duty is now to her, 
he says.” 

The next day John took Frank down to Kroywen, and saw 
her on board the Havre steamer. 


ruby’s husband. 


389 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

The tramp of the iron Leviathan — resistless as Fate, and 
more swift — still shakes the quaking marshes for miles around, 
as, a hundred times per day, the sister cities send greeting to 
one another. Wolf Hill rears his rough back — green in sum- 
mer and bristly in winter — against the western sky ; the salt 
tide comes and goes in the ditches, which are the arteries of the 
unredeemed expanse of wet lauds. Still, in the hunting season, 
the whistle of the sportsman and the sharp crack of his gun 
breed consternation among, and send death to, duck, and snipe, 
and woodcock. And still, when the day’s sport or work is 
ended, the windows of Meadow Cottage send long lines of red 
light into the darkness and mist of the surrounding levels ; still 
the walls echo the sound of boisterous laughter and boastful 
tales of achievements in moor and forest, wdiile the odor of 
savory roasts and appetizing broils clings lovingly to the 
dingy walls. But the enclosures have decayed fast in the damp 
atmorsphere, and mould and fungi have done their work upon 
the exterior of house and barn. 

Nick Sloane’s name is almost a forgotten word even with 
those who frequent his old abode. There is a story that he 
obtained money from some mysterious quarter, after his wife’s 
death, a larger sura than accrued from the sale of his property, 
and set sail for California, Australia, or Pike’s Peak, he having 
named each of these points as his destination in conversation 
with different persons. For five years preceding Mrs. Sloane’s 
decease, he appeared but seldom in his former haunts. Meadow 
Cottage was sold, and the father and mother inhabited a neat 


390 


ruby’s husband. 


farm-house twenty miles back in the country. Their daughter, 
who lived with them, was reported to their few neighbors to be 
out of health, and was never seen by visitors. They lived 
modestly, but comfortably ; and since Nick seldom worked, and 
was known to lose money, from time to time, in horse trades, 
not to hint at his quarterly sprees at the nearest market town, 
it was surmised by the country folk about them that they 
“ had money in the bank.” 

To the astonishment of those who were familiar with the late 
Mr. Suydam’s strict business habits, and to the especial bewil- 
derment of his widow, it was announced, after a diligent search 
through his papers, that he had died intestate. 

“ He told me on two occasions that he had made a will, and 
the homestead was to be yours, Louis,” said Mrs. Suydam to 
her son. “ And now the old place must be sold and go out of 
the family ! ” 

“ Yes, mother, unless John should choose to buy it in. He 
has property independent of his patrimony,” rejoined Louis, 
concealing his surmise as to the cause that had wrought the 
change of purpose in his father’s mind. “ Neither you nor I 
can afford to keep it.” 

John chose to do no such thing. He had made money, and, 
in making it, learned better how to keep it than to invest tens 
of thousands in an old pile of mortar and stone for which he 
had no personal use, and which would require the outlay of 
thousands more if he would modernize it, without which pro- 
cess it could not be rented to advantage. It came under the 
hammer, and was knocked down, with much of the furniture, 
to a “ new man,” who straiglrtway set to work to renovate 
the ancient mansion by introducing all the modern improve- 
ments, and sent chairs, sofas, etc., to the upholsterer’s, for 
fresh covers of brocatelle and velvet. 

Louis selected for himself two articles from the “ large and 
varied assortment of household and kitchen furniture.” These 
were his father’s favorite elbow-chair and the marble vase in 
the front parlor. The sale over, and herself put in possession 


ruby’s husband. 


391 


of her third of the estate, Mrs. Suydam sailed for the other 
continent, taking up her most permanent abode in Florence. 
People expected that Dr. Suydam would accompany her. It 
was the only thing left for him to do, now that his practice was 
so broken up by the queer stories in circulation about his mar- 
riage and his wife, whom, by the way, it was queerest of all that 
nobody had ever seen. It was reported that she had sustained 
some terrible injury about the time of Mr. Suydam’s death ; 
but she did not die then — and what became of her afterwards? 

Ruby did not die of her hurt, thanks to the unwearying care 
of her husband and her mother ; but the light of reason had 
departed forever from her eyes when Frank Barry last looked 
into them. Harmless as a child, and as silly, she remained a 
tenant of her father’s house, tended like a baby by the parent 
whose devotion to her idol was measurable only by the term 
of her own life. Louis settled the three in their mountain 
home, and sought for himself a livelihood and a career in the 
far West. For five 3^ears he transmitted regularly a stated 
sum for the maintenance of the Sloanes and their helpless 
charge, paying them an annual visit to note if there were 
any change in the condition of the latter. 

Early in the sixth year, he received a telegraphic despatch . 
that hurried him eastward. A sudden but not violent change 
in Ruby’s physical state had alarmed the watchful mother. She 
was alive when her husband reached her, — alive and suffering 
little or no pain. She smiled — the vacant simper habitual to 
her when he, for the first time in years, addressed to her a 
term of endearment, and asked if she knew him. 

“ The man is going to make love to me,” she said, feebly, 
and shrilly. “ Ma, if you say a word to him about you know 
what. I’ll never forgive you. Let me have my day.” 

She never saw the dawn of another. Mrs. Sloane .survived 
her -daughter but six mouths, and Nick disappeared shortly 
afterwards. 

A year later. Dr. Suydam, the most highly esteemed and 
successful physician in the rising city he had chosen as his resi- 


392 


ruby’s husband. 


dence, took patients and friends by surprise by bringing home, 
and installing as mistress of his new and handsome house, a 
sweet-looking little lady from Louisiana. She had been an 
early friend of the grave doctor, whose occasional gray hairs 
gave him additional dignity in the eyes of acquaintances, and 
won for him the confidence of many who would otherwise have 
hesitated to place their lives in the hands of a man, who, it was 
whispered, was not over thirty years of age. There had been 
talk of a love affair between these two, many years before, but 
it had come to nought, — the gossips further reported, — until 
he had chanced to meet her in the course of a trip down the 
Mississippi, the previous year. She was living with her sister, 
the wife of a rich planter, and the smitten physician had fol- 
lowed her home. She was speedily a welcome and honored 
member of the really excellent society her husband’s talents 
and worth had drawn around him. 

In this circle and abroad, he always speaks of her as “ Mrs. 
Suydam,” and adds to this respectful title the tribute of a 
certain gentle deference to her expressed opinions, and what he 
imagines are her wishes, which the ladies pronounce charming, 
graceful, and worthy of all imitation. In the sacred privacy 
of their home, happy and dear as earthly homes can ever be, 
he calls her, usually, “Frank” — often, and most feelingly, 
“ my good angel.” 


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